Walk on the Wild Side
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: Shalimar's mutant genes drive her crazy and endanger the entire team. But is that the whole story? Set in season two. CONCLUSION now posted. Does the ending work?
1. Chapter 1

From both a medical and a technological point of view, the clinic chair was a thing of beauty. It was convenient for the experts working on the occupant: not only could it be raised up or down with a simple flick of a lever, but it could contort into almost any position imaginable and some that weren't. There were nearby trays upon which to set instruments, there were marvels of medical science dotted around the room with which to scan the occupant in whichever way the expert felt best suited the situation, and there was an entire pharmacopoeia for the expert's use. It was even comfortable for the occupant.

Too bad the occupant wasn't using it.

"Sit down, Shalimar," Adam Kane grumbled, fumbling with the test tube in his hand, trying not to drop the other two. "How can I work if you're bouncing off of the walls?"

"I'm not bouncing!" Shalimar snarled. She glared at her reflection in the transparent plastic of the clinic walls, pacing back and forth. It was clear that she felt trapped in the tiny lab. Of course, anything smaller than the Great Outdoors would have felt too snug for the feral.

"You're not sitting down." Adam was trying to be reasonable. "You're walking around."

"I don't _want_ to sit down. _You_ sit down."

"Shalimar, your mutant genes are getting out of control." Still going for sweet reason. Even scientists could hope for miracles, and Adam was no exception. "I have to get these blood samples from you so that I can come up with a solution. Then I can help you. That means that you have to sit down so that I can work."

"You're _not _going to come up with a solution, and I'm going to go _crazy!_" Shalimar yelled. She slammed her fist against the plastic. It quivered; didn't break, but it was a near thing.

"Shalimar, calm yourself or I'll call the others," Adam threatened, his patience finally at an end. "You're only hurting yourself."

Shalimar punched the plastic again. A spot of blood appeared on the plastic, and on her fist. "You think I can't take them?" she screamed, whirling around to face her mentor. "You think I can't?"

End of the road. Adam set down his things and picked up a syringe filled with a clear liquid. "Shalimar, I need to give you this sedative. It will help you regain control—"

"No!" Shalimar shrieked. "No needles! _No needles_!" She launched herself into the air, intent on tearing the syringe from her mentor's hand. If that didn't work, it was obvious, the feral would be perfectly happy to tear the man's arm from his body. Either solution would be acceptable.

Adam barely had time to hit the panic button before she barreled into him, crashing them both into the bank of computers. Adam whoofed, the air knocked out of him. Not so Shalimar; she jumped back onto her feet, ready for more damage. _Which to destroy first? The pesky human on the floor or the nasty machinery that whined in the background?_

Brennan was first to arrive in response to the call for help. He unlocked the door from the outside in order to get in, the lock a precaution that Adam had set to prevent Shalimar from escaping and damaging the rest of the lab in her frenzy. "Shalimar!" he called out. "Shalimar, what's wrong?"

_First mistake_.

Shalimar launched herself through the air, landing somewhere in Brennan's mid-section and taking them both down to the cold hard floor. Brennan tried to defend himself without hurting his teammate: _second mistake_. Shalimar had no such qualms. She slipped inside his guard with speed that a striking cobra would have envied and landed a blow that sent stars careening through his brain. Brennan fell back.

_Free!_ Shalimar bounded to her feet, eyes narrowed and yellow, rationality completely gone.

Brennan crawled back to his feet a little more slowly. As an expert in martial arts, he was in excellent condition, but Shalimar Fox was a feral. He briefly considered zapping her one, the electrons flickering at his fingers tips, and regarded the lightning bolts mournfully. No, not yet. Too much danger of doing permanent damage, and Shalimar was his team mate and friend. No, this would have to be done the hard way. He advanced.

Emma was already there. "Shalimar, you have to calm down," she ordered. "This is just your mutant genes acting up. Don't make me—"

Shalimar didn't wait for the psionic to finish. She swept the tall redhead's feet out from under and delivered a spinning back kick to help her to the floor. Emma squawked, the yelp cut short by a heavy landing, her head cracking against the edge of a table. She lay still.

"As if you could," Shalimar sneered. She prepared to jump up to the balcony. It was sixteen feet above her head, and she knew she would have no trouble doing it. And that her pursuers would have to take the slow route: the stairs.

Strong arms encircled her: Jesse! Shalimar hissed. She could get out of this. She'd done so in numerous bouts with her 'little brother'. All it would take was a backward head butt and a twist of his arm to escape and she would leave this cavern of misguided misfits behind. All it would take was—

The strong arms got stronger: Jesse phased to solid rock. Shalimar head-butted and nearly knocked herself silly. She twisted at his arm; the diamond hard limb didn't move.

"No fair!" she shrieked in rage. And it wasn't; she'd beaten Jesse Kilmartin routinely in practice matches. But this time he cheated. He used his own mutant powers to trap her within his grasp.

"I'll show you," Shalimar growled. "You have to stop phasing sometime. Then I'll grind you to a pulp—"

"Hold her," Adam ordered. He plunged the syringe into Shalimar's arm, heedless of her screams of defiance, helping to hold the feral until the sedative took effect. Shalimar slumped in Jesse's arms. He eased her into a more comfortable hold, gasping for breath and returning to normal density, Brennan coming up to handle his share of the feral.

"Thanks," Jesse said gratefully. "I was about to lose it."

Adam motioned to the door of the clinic room. "Bring her in here. I'll administer another sedative, one that will last longer. Hopefully when she wakes up she'll be under better control. Emma, you all right?" he asked, noticing her holding her wrist uncomfortably and looking dazed.

"Just a sprain, Adam," the psionic replied, blinking. "She took me by surprise. I should have been faster."

"Nobody's faster than a feral," Adam told her. "You took a pretty good knock on the head. I'll check you for concussion as soon as I deal with Shalimar. Put her here," he directed Brennan and Jesse, who obediently and gently deposited the feral onto the clinic bed and took up the restraints. "No, you won't need those."

Brennan just looked at the scientist. "She crunched this room, she took down all four of us, and the only reason we got her under control is because we ganged up on her and then drugged her. And now you're saying that we don't need to tie her down? Are you crazy?"

"Brennan," Adam started, and then sighed. "All right. But someone stays with her at all times. And when she comes out of this, we let her up. The worst thing for a feral, for Shalimar's state of mind, will be to be cooped up and trapped."

"Deal." Brennan tightened the restraint over Shalimar's wrist. "Just as long as Shalimar understands that her part in this mess includes not ripping my head off, either figuratively or literally."

Jesse also moved in. "Adam, this is the third time in as many days. What's going on with Shalimar?"

Another sigh, this one heavier. "Wish I knew," Adam said. "It has to be her mutant genes. I never saw this coming. Other symptoms, yes, but not this lack of control, this…" He cast around, at a loss for words.

"Ferocity?" Emma suggested, looking up from holding her head in her hands.

Adam grimaced. "That'll do."

"Face it, Adam, Shalimar's a feral," Brennan said. "More than that, her mutant genes are based on carnivores. Of course she's going to get more fierce. We've been lucky that she's been able to keep it under control as long as she has."

"That doesn't help," Jesse admonished him. "We need answers, answers to how to help Shalimar get back to normal."

"But what if this is normal?" Brennan asked insistently. "Are we all going to end up like this, powerless against our mutations?" He flicked his fingers. Little flickers of electronic light bounced between like a miniature Jacob's Ladder. "I've been out of control, Jesse, and it's not a fun place to be."

"Then this is just Shalimar's turn," Jesse said stoutly. "We fixed you, Brennan, and we can fix Shalimar. Right, Adam?"

Adam gave him a smile, bright and false. "Right." Then he turned serious. "I _will_ come up with a solution, just as I did for you, Brennan. I'm not giving up without a fight." He looked ruefully down at the unconscious tiny blonde woman on the clinic bed. Even in her drugged sleep, Shalimar lifted one corner of her lip in a feral snarl. "I just didn't expect the fight to be so literal."

Emma wandered into the clinic area, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her wrist was in a wrap, but other than that, she showed no evidence of the fight that happened mere hours ago. That, Jesse knew, was because Emma had carefully draped her bangs over the nasty bruise on the side of her head. Jesse wasn't fooled, but Emma pretended that he was. "How is she? Did she wake up yet?"

Jesse stretched, staying seated on the hard stool that he'd dragged over to the clinic bed where Shalimar lay sleeping. "Not a peep, not a snore. Not a word."

"No dreams." Emma stared at Shalimar for a brief moment, scanning. "She's resting. Her feelings are peaceful."

"Good. At least one of us is getting some sleep. Even if it took one of Adam's magic potions to do the trick." He glanced at his watch. "You sure you're up for this? I can sit with her. How's your head?"

Emma smiled gently. "I'm fine, and it's my turn. Besides, this is the time of night when it's easiest for me."

"Fewer thoughts to fend off?"

Emma nodded. "Pretty much. Easier on my psychic barriers."

Jesse yawned. "All yours, then. 'Night."

"'Night," Emma echoed, seating herself on the stool that Jesse just vacated. She waited until the molecular had left the room before turning her attention back to Shalimar. She rubbed her temples briefly, trying to persuade the ache to go away. Contrary to what she'd told Jesse, she did not feel up to this. But that didn't matter; Shalimar was her teammate, her friend—and her 'sister'. A small thing like concussion didn't enter into the matter. And then there was the mystery of the little stray thoughts that she'd thought she sensed when going after Shalimar earlier in the day, the thoughts that she hadn't shared with Adam because she wasn't certain that she'd felt them—or that Adam would believe her. "Now, let's see just what it was that I picked up this afternoon." Eyes going hooded, she stared down.

No normal human would have seen what went on next, and most mutants wouldn't have, either. Only a very talented psionic would have seen the psychic link that Emma aimed at Shalimar. And only a very talented and lucky psionic would have known what she was about.

Emma delved into Shalimar's mind, gently touching the dream that lingered there. It was a pleasant one for the feral, one that was filled with tall green trees above her and bushes that she could slink through in search of prey to be hunted down. Even as Emma 'watched', Shalimar leaped and sprang, the small animal writhing in her predatory grasp. Emma hurriedly withdrew before she could experience the rest of Shalimar's dream. It was all a natural part of the cycle of life but that didn't mean that Emma had to share this part of it with her teammate.

And Emma was after something else. It was that little inkling of thought, the briefest hint of an idea that seemed to be streaming into Shalimar's mind when the feral was so out of control yesterday afternoon. No one except a psionic could have noticed it, and even Emma herself wasn't quite certain of what she had 'seen'. So now, in the early hours of pre-dawn when almost no one was awake, Emma began her own hunt.

More prey animals, scurrying in the bushes of Shalimar's mind; Emma avoided those. Not what she wanted. Not the cliffs to be bounded up, not the treetops to prowl through, not even the feral sight narrowing down to a single object to be pounced upon. Shalimar's thought were all the peaceful ones that she experienced every night, whether she remembered them or not. There was nothing foreign, nothing that Emma hadn't seen many times over when casting about at night, hunting down psionic influences to protect Sanctuary.

Reluctantly Emma withdrew. There was nothing there, nothing beyond the ordinary. Whatever Emma had seen earlier, it wasn't there now. Emma wasn't certain that she had actually seen anything at all. It had been such a fleeting thought, such a slender wisp of an idea that she easily could have imagined it. Psionics was not an exact science, she reminded herself. There was a reason that it was associated with tea-leaf readers and tarot cards. And even though her powers had become stronger and less prone to error, that didn't mean that she was infallible. Emma sighed.

No, wait: there it was. The merest tendril of a thought, the tiniest hint of—

Bright eyes looked up at her: Shalimar was awake with the suddenness of any forest creature. No gradual drowsy appearance of consciousness, simply: awake. "Emma?" A little voice, scared.

Emma hurriedly withdrew. It was all right; her head ached something fierce from the fight. "I'm right here, Shalimar," Emma reassured her. "How do you feel?"

Shalimar thought, swiftly searching through every part of her body with only the knowledge that a feral could have. "Why am I tied down? What did I do?"

"You were out of control," Emma told her. "You wouldn't let Adam take any samples."

"Oh." Shalimar reddened. "I think I remember." Then, "—and?"

"You got a little wild."

"Oh." Shalimar noticed the brace on Emma's wrist. "Me?"

"You didn't mean it," Emma hastened to tell her. "You were just…"

"Crazy?" Shalimar suggested bitterly. "On a killing rampage?"

"It wasn't you," Emma said firmly. "Look, Adam said to take off the restraints as soon as you woke up." She reached for the first wrist.

Shalimar stopped her with her eyes. "Are you sure you can trust me?"

Emma nodded soberly. "I can always trust you, Shalimar."

Adam tossed Shalimar a vial of small white pills, trusting, as always, that the feral could snatch it out of the air. He wasn't disappointed.

"What are these?" Shalimar wanted to know. Behind her Brennan and Jesse also looked up with interest.

"Tranquilizers," Adam said soberly. "Until I figure out how to fix what's going on inside you, I want you to take those. Take two every four hours. They'll help you to stay in control."

Shalimar made a face. "Put me to sleep, you mean."

Adam shook his head. "No, they'll just take the edge off. Yes, you'll probably feel tired for the next few days, but I have hopes that I'll have licked this thing before too much longer. Then you won't need them." He wagged his finger at her, trying to make a joke of it. "Correction: _we_ won't need them to prevent becoming your next catch of the day."

"Right." Shalimar tried to smile. It didn't quite come off.

Adam recognized the signs. "I mean it, Shalimar. Look, I could go through all the genetic mumbo-jumbo, but would it really mean anything to you? Anything beyond 'I can fix this'?"

"I'd really like to be able to hear that for real," Brennan put in.

"And you will, Brennan." Adam turned to the elemental, grateful for another person in the discussion, grateful for the distraction. "I need some more time. I've come up with solutions before, and I'll come up with one now. Shalimar, your part in this is to keep your cool. Those pills will help."

"All right," Shalimar sighed. She looked around to ask for a glass of water, only to find Jesse already pushing one into her hand.

He grinned. "It's either this or I can practice holding my breath until you calm down. And since I'm already up to three minutes, you'd better opt for the pharmacist's approach."

Shalimar sniffed, and swallowed her medicine. "What about working out?" she asked Adam. "I'll go crazy if I can't do something to get rid of the heebie-jeebies."

Adam shook his head. "We'd better put limits on that, too. No hand to hand. Somebody lands a bell-ringer and you'll forget what's going on. You can run laps," he suggested. "Go out in the woods. Sniff some fresh air."

"Stick to tracking," Brennan advised. "Look, I'll even go with you."

"Into the forest?" Shalimar was amazed, and touched. "Brennan, you hate the Great Outdoors."

"I do not," he denied.

"Do, too."

"Do not. Don't confuse my liking for hot showers and clean bed linens for a dislike for fresh air. I like being outside as much as the next person."

"Unless the next person is Shalimar," Jesse snuck in. Brennan glared at him.

Adam intervened. "Actually, that's a good idea, Brennan. Shalimar, I agree, you need to do something with yourself. If you're kept cooped up inside Sanctuary it will only exacerbate your condition. Getting outside to roam around will work off the excess energy and stress. Taking Brennan along will keep him out of my lab asking about progress every thirty seconds."

"What is this, pick on Brennan day?"

Adam ignored the elemental. "I'd offer the other two as well, but I need Jesse in the lab with me and Emma is off doing Emma type things. Hopefully she's sleeping. That was quite a bell-ringer you gave her yesterday, Shalimar."

"She's not sleeping this time, Adam. She's being mysterious again," Jesse clarified. "Said she needed to search the upper planes of existence. Me, I think she just has a sappy romance novel that she wants to read without anyone making fun of her."

That pushed a weak smile out of Shalimar. "Okay, guys, you win. I'll go out and work out some of the kinks. C'mon, Brennan. The way I'm feeling, you're going to have to run to keep up."

There was a groan from Brennan but Jesse's quip put it into perspective: "Just wait until the tranquilizer kicks in. Then we'll see who's running."

Adam could be very patient when he wanted to, and even when he didn't want to. This was one of the times when he didn't want to, but disturbing Emma in a trance was something that he wanted to do even less. He recalled the last time that had happened: he'd spent a week cleaning up the lab, not to mention three weeks' worth of data lost in the explosion that took out the computer in his lab. It would have been twice as much if Jesse hadn't backed up the hard drive.

So he sat on the chair in Emma's room, watching the red-headed psionic sit lotus-fashion on her bed, looking deep inside herself. The only movement in the room was Brownian movement of air molecules and damn little of that, he decided.

He coughed. A small noise, yet it might be enough for Emma to come out of her trance and talk to him. Hopefully without blasting him out of the room, of course.

It worked. Emma gave a deep, cleansing sigh, and opened her eyes, swaying a moment before catching her balance even on top of the bed as she was. "Adam."

Adam smiled crookedly. "Find what you were looking for?"

Emma deliberately didn't answer the question. Her head was pounding. "Have you been here long?"

"Long enough." Two could play at that game. Let Emma decide how long 'long enough' was. He leaned back in his chair, trying to look at ease, trying not to wonder how far Jesse had gotten on the computer program that he was running for Adam. And then he frowned; Emma still looked wiped out from the fight yesterday with Shalimar. He shouldn't have let her stay up with the feral through the night; that had been a mistake.

Emma smiled from underneath wickedly grinning eyebrows. Even without her powers she could see through her mentor. She let him stew.

Adam gave up. "Find anything out there?" he asked again.

"I'm not sure," Emma finally admitted. "Yesterday I thought I felt something—no, some_one_—who was trying to get at Shalimar. It wasn't much, and it felt like I was imagining it. It disappeared as soon as I noticed it. So I tried again last night, when I sat with Shalimar."

"And…?" Adam prompted.

Emma shrugged. "Nothing. Nothing that I could feel." She shrugged her shoulders again. "It was probably my imagination." She turned away from the topic. "Are you getting anywhere with a solution for Shalimar?"

Now it was Adam's turn to shrug. "You know how it is. You push at this end, pull at that…" He trailed off.

"You're not finding anything, are you?"

"I can't hide anything from you," Adam said bitterly. "Have you told Shalimar?"

"I didn't use my powers," Emma reproved. "It's written all over your face. Even Shalimar can see it, Adam. That's why she agreed to go outside, so you wouldn't have to look at her. And feel guilty."

Adam sank deeper into the chair. "I don't even know where to begin, Emma. All the tests I'm running are coming back normal. I've run every test—most of them twice—and some that shouldn't tell me anything. There's nothing wrong with Shalimar, and yet there is!" He looked back up. "I don't know what to do, Emma. I don't know how to help her. Which is why I was hoping that you'd found something. Something that will explain what's going wrong with Shalimar."

Emma nodded soberly. "I'll keep trying."

Adam stood up, shoulders slumping. "So will I." He didn't have the heart to tell the psionic to rest. Neither of them would until Shalimar's problem was solved, no matter what the cost.

Brennan envied the easy way Shalimar trotted along the dirt-packed path. She was almost a foot shorter than he, with legs significantly smaller, yet she kept on going, and going… She made the EverReady Bunny want to curl up its toes and go home crying to Mommy. Brennan himself was made more for short sprints, sharp bursts of speed and energy, and while he was in top physical condition there was no way he was about to outdo the feral on the trail.

He could at least enjoy it. Jogging behind her, he could admire the way the blonde curls bounced, the ebb and flow of leg muscles propelling her forward in denim shorts that left just enough to the imagination. All in all a very pleasant outing, and best of all it was Shalimar and not Emma. The psionic was just as drop-dead gorgeous in her own way but the thoughts that Brennan was feeling would get him pounded the moment Emma opened up her frontal lobes.

He followed where Shalimar led, content to let her break trail. She had an uncanny way of figuring out which way the path would lead, had already come across a herd of timid deer. She'd even approached to within a scant yard of the buck, a fine looking animal with six point antlers that suggested an old man of the forest. But the buck allowed the feral to come to him and almost permitted a gentle caress before snorting disgustedly and moving his family back into the forest. Shalimar tossed Brennan a gleeful glance before trotting back onto the path, not even looking back to see if the puffing elemental was following.

_If this is what she's like when she's on tranquilizers, I'd hate to try to cope with her alone when she's not._

Shalimar finally allowed him to rest in a sunny clearing, three large boulders set out in the open. A few yards away was a cliff. Not too long ago something—probably another boulder—had taken down part of the cliff edge, giving it a newly sharpened look. Brennan resolved not to get too close. He wasn't afraid of heights, but neither was he stupid. The cliff had fallen once, it might do it again.

"Chicken," Shalimar giggled, jumping up on top of one of the boulders. She stopped to caress his jaw in a way that Brennan found very disturbing—and enticing. She hopped away onto another tall boulder, showing off both her mutant abilities—and herself.

Brennan refused to get either excited or annoyed. That would be taking advantage of the feral when she wasn't herself, and that would have consequences later on that neither of them would want to cope with. "Nope. Smart."

Shalimar bounded from one boulder to the next, making leaps that no normal human could even contemplate. She even turned a flip mid-air, just to make it interesting, onto the boulder closest to the edge of the precipice. Pebbles and a handful of dirt cascaded down the cliff face. She allowed her blouse to slip down one shoulder, looking sideways at Brennan to see if he'd noticed.

"Want to keep it safe there? I didn't bring a rope to haul your broken body back up the cliff," Brennan called out. "Can't you jump on rocks farther away from the edge?"

"Chicken," Shalimar called out again. More dirt leaped away. Brennan couldn't hear the stones hit bottom, which suggested that the bottom was _very_ far away. He elected not to look over to find out. But that left him staring at Shalimar who was deliberately undressing herself in front of him.

She looked up, and her mood changed with feral swiftness. "Maybe a timid bunny rabbit," Shalimar suggested, getting tired of her game. "Want to be called 'Mouse'? Squeak, squeak, squeak, Brennan."

Hm. Not good. Now Shalimar was deliberately trying to goad him into an argument. Brennan almost preferred the vamp. "Hey, Shalimar, you got any more of Adam's pills with you? You're starting to sound like the first one is wearing off."

"I don't need any of his pills!" Shalimar went from giggling to snarling in a flash. "And I don't need you!" She leaped off of the boulder, heading up hill.

"Shalimar!" Brennan hauled himself upright and launched long legs into a weary run. "Shalimar, wait!"

Shalimar whipped around. "Don't follow me!" she hissed. Brennan could have sworn that the blonde ringlets were standing on end like an angry cat.

"Shalimar, come back! Dammit," Brennan finished, watching Shalimar's backside again. Only this time it was disappearing over the hill. He brought his comm. ring to his face. "Adam? Adam, Jesse, Emma? Anybody there?"

"Brennan?" It was Jesse.

"Shalimar ditched me." It took only a moment to update the molecular. "I lost her, Jesse. Can you track her with her comm.?"

"Hang on a sec." Brennan could hear the tap-tapping of Jesse's fingers as he turned the computer in front of him to the new task. "Okay, I've got two green dots, one moving and one stationary. Can I assume that you are the stationary dot?"

"Want me to jump up and down?"

Jesse ignored the quip. "I've got Shalimar about a mile away from you, moving west by north west."

"A mile?" Brennan whistled. "She's moving."

"You must have pissed her off something fierce."

"Not me, bro. It's whatever is going on inside her. Happy one moment and raging the next. Adam come up with anything?"

"Not sure. He's not talking, which could mean anything. He could be close, or he could be floundering in the dark. Want to take bets as to when he solves this?"

Brennan considered. Every time he put his faith in Adam, he won. If he couldn't keep track of Shalimar, he could at least win something from Jesse. "Sure. I'm taking close. You?"

"Hey, I wanted close."

"No fair, Jesse. You're doing the computer work for him. You're more in the know." If Jesse wanted close, then so did Brennan. Mrs. Mulwray hadn't raised a fool for a son. "You brought it up, I get first dibs. What do I get when I win?"

"Hm." Jesse pretended to think. "Dinner at Chez Robert."

"For four?"

"Two."

"Four. If I'm going to Chez Robert, I want something attractive and sweet-smelling on my arm, and you don't qualify, bro."

"Hey! I resent that. I used my deodorant this morning." More tapping on the computer keyboard. "And if I win?"

"Dinner at Antonio's. For four."

"That dump? Even the pizza is bad."

"All right, how about Pietro's?"

"The house wine is crap."

"With a bottle from their cellar, then."

"Done. If Adam comes up with a solution before noon tomorrow, you win. Deal?"

"Deal," Brennan echoed, wondering suddenly if he'd gotten the short end of the stick. Jesse had allowed him to choose the alternative entirely too easily. "I'd better get after Shalimar. Adam is not going to be a happy camper if I let her get lost in the forest."

"True," Jesse conceded. "She's up to two miles, Brennan. Either she's in a car, or she's running flat out."

"Trust me, a car wouldn't get three feet in this terrain," Brennan assured him. "Point me in the right direction. Northwest?"

"By northwest."

"Brennan." Adam's voice cut in on them. "Is Shalimar with you? I can't reach her on her comm. link. I want her back here."

Brennan winced. "Uh, little problem here, Adam. Shalimar got a little frisky. She's about two miles down the road." _Yes! Did this mean that Adam had a cure?_ Brennan wondered if lobster was in season at Chez Robert's.

"Two and a half miles by now," Jesse chirped from his end. If the comm. link had been equipped with a two way digital camera, Brennan's glare would have fried the molecular.

But Adam didn't appear particularly eager to blame the elemental for losing Shalimar, seemed to think that it would have happened no matter what Brennan did. "I'm sending Jesse out to help track her down. Get her back here, Brennan. In this state, there's no telling what she will do." He paused. "Let me re-phrase that: I have a pretty good idea what she'll do, and it will be very hard to keep it out of the local newspapers. _And _keep Shalimar out of jail."

"Um, Emma with a mental whammy would be nice," Jesse tentatively suggested. "I can stay phased only just so long."

"Emma is resting," Adam informed them. "I think she's got a mild concussion from when Shalimar jumped her. Jesse, come down to the lab. I'll give you a tranquilizer gun instead. That should even the odds."

"The sights on that thing are awful," Jesse tried to complain.

"Then let Brennan do the shooting. He's got a better eye than you."

"Does not," Jesse started to object, but they heard the distinct click as Adam signed off.

Brennan let the grin touch his voice. "You heard the man, bro. Get your tail out here with that trank gun. And don't forget the darts."

"Get me a pad of paper!" Emma's voice sounded anguished. "Hurry!" She all but snatched the paper and pencil from Adam's hands, sketching in the blurry features of the face that she 'saw' in her mind. One pencil, then a second as the first became dull, and the outlines of someone started to come clear. Emma was no artist, but for this she didn't need to be. She simply allowed her hands to bypass her conscious will and the scene flowed down onto the white paper.

Adam could barely keep still. This was the break that he had been waiting for. It wasn't his lab technique; that was being proven now. There was someone outside of Sanctuary who was attacking Shalimar psionically. Emma had doggedly pursued that stray tendril of thought, and had now zeroed in on her quarry just as if it were Shalimar tracking her prey. _More than one kind of hunting_…

But Emma threw the paper from her with an exclamation of disgust.

"Emma?" Adam went to pick it up, watching Emma turn her face to hide the tear that trickled down her cheek. When he looked at what Emma had drawn, he understood her frustration. Understood that they were almost—not quite, but almost—back to square one.

It was a picture of Adam himself.

"Emma?" Adam asked again. "Emma, what is it?"

"It's me!" she burst out bitterly. "Adam, I wanted so badly to come up with a way to cure Shalimar that I imagined that some psionic was attacking her. That's why I couldn't find who it was. There was… no…one…" She trailed off, her head spinning.

"Emma?" Adam caught the girl, eased her back onto the bed. "Emma!"


	2. Chapter 2

Jesse hoofed it to where Brennan was lounging, the elemental's feet propped casually up on a rock, trying to pretend that the ground was comfortable. As Jesse came into view he waved a leisurely hand in the molecular's direction. "Going my way? Where's the limo?"

A snort was the reply, and Jesse extended a hand to pull Brennan to his feet. "You had to let Shalimar get all the way out here? This is the middle of nowhere."

"Who was it that told Adam to have me go along with her?" Brennan retorted. "Payback, bro. Payback." He looked around. "Where's the car? You said Shal was two miles away half an hour ago, and she's probably doubled that by now."

"Where do you think? You and Shal took the Jeep and left me with Miata. There isn't more than three inches of clearance on that baby, Brennan. You think I'm going to ram it along trails filled with rocks?"

Brennan winced. "Okay, point taken. Far?"

"I left it a mile back, where the dirt road turned into no road. Here," Jesse indicated the trank gun and a smallish scanner on his back. "I toted this stuff out here. At least you can help with the carrying." He handed the trank gun over and pulled out the scanner, turning it on and waiting impatiently for the green screen to tell him what he wanted to know. "Hah. Got her on the first try. She's not too far from here; she must be doubling back." He grinned. "See that? Shalimar knew I was coming, and decided to make it easy on us. Must be my boyish charm."

"When you get some, let me know." Brennan unlimbered the trank gun and loaded in the tranquilizer dart. "One of these should do the trick?"

Jesse shrugged. "Adam wasn't too clear on that. Said he thought so, but to feel free to give her a second dose. Three would be too much, though." He cocked his head. "What if she's back to normal?"

Brennan considered. "I suppose we'd have to let her come back on her own and stay with us. But I'm really gonna miss not being able to shoot her. How often do you get to shoot a teammate, live to tell about it, and then have her thank you for doing it?"

"We should be seeing her any moment," Jesse announced, staring at the screen of the scanner. "Coming over that hill in five, four, three…"

Brennan turned and waved. "Hey, Shalimar! Over here." As if the feral didn't know where they were. Shalimar waved back, acknowledging their whereabouts. Brennan turned back to Jesse, going for disappointed. "She seems back to normal." And, casually, while they were waiting for Shalimar to reach them: "Adam figure out what's wrong?"

Jesse shrugged, apparently forgetting their bet. "Not sure. Didn't really seem like it. Nothing that popped up in my computer search seemed to fit the bill. But he's been poking at Emma. She thinks she may have a lead."

"Emma?" Brennan didn't expect that. "Adam thinks Shalimar is just plain crazy? I don't buy that, Jess."

"If you have a better suggestion, let's hear it. Hey, Shal," Jesse greeted the feral as she trotted up. Not even out of breath, Brennan noted sourly. Maybe glowing a little with perspiration, but it _was_ summer after all. He glanced skyward; there were a few threatening clouds moving in from the west. Good thing Shalimar came back now, or a soaking would become a very real possibility. And, as an elemental with an affinity for electricity and a certain allergy to short circuits… _Well, let's just say it's a good thing Shalimar came in on her own. And we'll leave it at that._

"Hey, Jess," Shalimar returned, looking a bit sheepish. "Brennan, I'm sorry. I guess I got carried away." She noticed the trank gun in Brennan's arms. "Uh, you _were_ getting serious, weren't you? I wasn't gone all that long."

"Adam's orders, Shal." Jesse stepped in. "He wants you back in Sanctuary. You weren't responding to your comm. link."

"He's got a lead?" Hopeful.

"Maybe. He and Emma are working on something."

"Emma!" Shalimar took a step back, suddenly alarmed. "What's Emma got to do with this?"

Jesse shrugged, trying for the right amount of nonchalance. "Beats me. What say we head back and find out?"

"What say we don't?" Shalimar shot back.

"Look, Shalimar," Brennan said, forcing himself to stay calm because it was clear that Shalimar wasn't. She was on an upward spiral. "You know that something's not right with you. You've said it yourself. Come back with us; let's solve this thing together."

"Stay away from me!" Shalimar demanded. Her eyes shot yellow, feral wildness coming in to take over. She took another step backward.

This was _so_ not good. Brennan swung the trank gun around to where he could aim it. Win-win situation: either Shalimar would surrender peacefully and he could put the gun down, or she'd run in which case Brennan would feel perfectly justified in shooting her on the fly. "Shal, you know that's your mutant side talking. Come back so that Adam can help you. And Emma. And Jess and me. We all care about you."

Mistake. Any sensible feral would make a beeline straight away and as far away as she could get. Brennan wouldn't have put it past her to be able to dodge the tranquilizer dart. But that wasn't what Shalimar did.

Instead, she jumped straight for him, knocking the trank gun out of Brennan's hands. It was not what Brennan expected. It wasn't sane. But it worked: the gun went flying, the trigger jolted when the butt of the gun hit the ground. The dart flew straight up into the air and returned to earth to successfully sedate a nearby bush.

Having accomplished her objective—disarming her former teammates—Shalimar then proceeded to demonstrate that even after a five mile hike on a mountain top, she could still outrun both Brennan and Jesse. Jesse tried for another bear hug, intending to phase solid to prevent her from beating him to a messy pulp, but she never allowed him to get close. The trank gun was useless; by the time they could get it re-loaded, Shalimar was long gone.

Jesse looked at Brennan. "That went well."

Brennan rubbed the knuckles on his hand, ruefully surveying the missing skin. "How do you figure that?"

Jesse grinned crookedly. "We're alive." He picked up his scanner and turned it back on, tossing the trank gun to Brennan who plucked it out of the air. "C'mon, Sparky. Let's go hunting."

Adam was not in control, and he didn't like it. This was a problem where all of his computers, his technology, even the genetic science that he was so knowledgeable of was turning out to be all but worthless.

Instead he got to watch Emma sit and think. Well, not think exactly. More like 'feel'. Emma was an empath, able to sense feelings and emotions rather than thoughts. Which was what she was doing at the moment, casting around for the origin of the feelings that were aimed at Shalimar. Incense was strong in her room, and the furnishings designed to help her concentrate on her craft. It felt totally foreign to Adam, at the other end of the scientific spectrum. He watched her do what to the non-psychic eye looked like nothing. Like she was taking a nap in an uncomfortable lotus position.

Adam couldn't help but feel that this was a psychic attack. All of his lab results were coming back negative, which meant that the cause was something outside of Shalimar's body: another mutant. It all made sense to him: the mutant doing the attacking was clearly thinking of Adam, was aiming the attack through Shalimar in the only way that he or she knew how: psychic battle. The assault had been subtle at first; even Jesse had commented on Shalimar's increased aggressiveness during their practice bouts but it had become obvious to them all when they thought that Shalimar was losing control over her feral nature. Adam stepped in to try to cure her through conventional genetics. He failed, because the cause wasn't genetic. Or, rather, it was but not Shalimar's genes. It was the genes of another unknown mutant.

"Not unknown," Adam had corrected Emma eagerly. "I think you were right in the first place: it's another psionic. You got the picture of me from that mutant's head. They must know me from somewhere. That's the only explanation that makes any sense, that narrows it down to a mere ten thousand or so."

"Not as many as all that," Emma reproved. She wasn't convinced that the cause was another psionic, but if Adam wanted her to look, then she was all for it. Her own last foray into the psychic overworld had come up as empty as Adam's lab results. At least this request meant that she could do something, even if it were hopeless. "If it's a psionic, it's a fairly powerful one." She ticked the points off on her fingers. "Also, they have to know Shalimar enough to be able to insert psychic fingers into her mind. And they have to be able to do it delicately enough so that I wouldn't go looking for them until it was too late. That suggests a certain skill level, Adam. Can't you run a computer search to narrow the possible list down?" she asked, knowing full well that a task such as that would be child's play for the scientist. But it would give him something to do beyond pace back and forth, watching her search the psychic airwaves. And having her mentor scrutinizing every eye blink that she did was interfering with Emma's own work. His broadcasting of emotions was blocking any other psionic touches that she needed to locate.

Adam had brightened, and gone immediately to his computer and multitude of data banks. Five minutes later it had spit out three possibles, pictures and all, which Adam gleefully handed to Emma.

Which left them back at square one: Adam staring at Emma. _Oh, well. At least it was a short break from the eyeballs._

Sighing, Emma picked up the first picture and squinted, trying to touch the mind represented by the photograph. She concentrated on the name: Miriam Schweltzer, knowing that even more than sight, a person's identity was bound up in their name. It was the last thing to go as the mind deteriorated and the piece the most difficult to cover up. When Shalimar tracked, she went by the scent of her prey. When Emma did the same thing, she searched for the feel of the name.

She got an impression of winging over a vast distance, that this Miriam lived very far away. Tremendous unhappiness, but it was over a relationship. Miriam felt anger, confusion, humiliation, even sexual tension—but nothing that suggested that either Adam or Shalimar was involved. Although the feelings were recent, perhaps even lingering on right now, today. Emma delved a bit deeper, checking and re-affirming the emotions. This was far from an exact science, and Emma had learned through experience to verify what she sensed. And what she sensed at the moment said very clearly that Adam and Shalimar were not the targets of Miriam's anger.

Still, she had to make sure: "Adam, did you ever have an affair with Miriam?"

"What?" Adam colored.

"An affair. A date. Any reason to think that Miriam Schweltzer was romantically involved with you? Even a one-sided involvement that you or she didn't encourage?"

"No." Bald, and to the point. Discouraging of any further exploration. Emma pointed that out.

Adam's flush deepened. "No, Emma. Not possible."

"Why not?"

Adam gritted his teeth. "Because Miriam was a paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down in an operation gone wrong. She was brought to me hoping that I could do something for her. I couldn't help her body to function, but I did help her to realize her psionic potential. She moved on several years ago, shortly after Shalimar arrived."

"Adam, people paralyzed at the waist can still have healthy romantic relationships. Did she have one with you? Healthy or unhealthy?"

"Miriam wasn't ready for that. She was still angry at the people who had put her into the wheelchair. That was the problem. People with injuries like that are generally angry but Miriam, with her psionic abilities, was literally impossible to be around. People would fly into rages, exhibit signs of pathological depression; we even had one technician experience a complete psychotic break with reality. That kept on going until I was able to help her learn to shield her emotions from others, just as I did for you." Adam grinned crookedly. "A lot of what I learned from Miriam, I gave to you."

Emma nodded slowly. When she first came to Sanctuary, she had been a mess herself and at the time too hurt to even ask how it was that Adam had learned how to help her. This explained a lot. "Was Miriam angry at you?"

"At first, yes. She was angry at the world. It's common with an injury such as that."

"And later—?'

Adam shrugged. "Miriam was a smart woman. She wanted to try to go for her own advanced degree in genetics. But she had two strikes against her: her disability and, more importantly, her mutation. Eckhart had just taken over Genomex, I had recently escaped by the skin of my teeth, and Genomex would have swooped down on her like a hawk. I convinced her to head for the underground just before I left. Last I heard, she was on the other coast, living in a commune and making pottery and doing marriage counseling on the side." He grimaced. "And yes, at first, I think she did have a misguided crush. It's common among patients in that sort of condition. I did nothing to encourage it, and she grew out of it and moved on. Is she still angry? I wouldn't be surprised. Her own mutation robbed her any chance she had for studying genetics. But as far as I know, she's not angry at me."

Emma gave up. "Okay, how about this one?"

Adam peered at the name. "Chuck Hendrickson? Not a chance this is our guy, Emma. Most likeable guy I've ever met." He grinned, the mere memory demonstrating that there couldn't be any animosity. "Go ahead and see if you can touch his head, but it won't be him. Had a lot of psionic potential, but there's no way it's him."

"Why not?" Emma wanted to know.

But Adam wouldn't give her an answer. "Just see if you can touch his feelings," he urged with a crooked smile. "You'll see what I mean."

Amusement was the feeling strongest in Adam's thoughts, and that went along with his attitude. Puzzled, she picked up the photograph of the psionic and, fixing the head shot in her mind, cast out among the upper planes for her target.

It didn't take long to find him, and, just as amusement had been uppermost in her mentor's mind, so it was in Chuck Hendrickson. And laughter. And giddiness, along with a side helping of silly. It was impossible _not_ to like the guy, and Emma wasn't anywhere near him.

She understood. Chuck Hendrickson was an empath like herself but instead of both receiving and sending, Chuck could only send emotions. And he could only send one emotion: happiness. He was an instant dose of Prozac, the eternal upper, the guy who could literally light up a room with his mere presence. He could sell ice cubes to Eskimos, for they would be eager to do anything to please him.

This was clearly not who they were searching for. This man had nothing against either Adam or Shalimar; he was one mutant that no one could dislike. It simply wasn't possible. All the man had to do was to turn on his charm, and people would fall over themselves to do what he wanted. If he had wanted Shalimar, he could simply go after her. Even Adam would do whatever Chuck Hendrickson wanted. This mutant had no reason to be angry at anyone because it was impossible not to try to please him. _Thank goodness he's not evil,_ Emma thought. _Even I would have trouble taking him down. I don't think I could bring myself to do the deed. He's simply too likeable!_

A very powerful mutant, and potentially a dangerous one, but not who they were looking for. Emma opened her eyes and handed the photo back to Adam. "You were right, Adam. He's not the one."

"Which leaves Yves-Jacques St. Legere." Adam picked up the last photo. This one was of a young boy, wide and scared brown eyes looking at the camera.

"A big name for a little boy," was Emma's opinion. Her head had started pounding again; would it ever stop?

Adam chuckled. "He's probably grown into it by now. This picture is a few years old. Y.J. would be about fifteen by now, and his genetic scan suggested that he would end up as tall as Brennan. Cute kid, but with a hard life. Mother was a prescription drug addict and finally over-dosed just shortly after this picture was taken. Father made a fortune in the industry and was busy gambling away his earnings and paying little attention to his one and only son. There probably won't be much left when Y.J. comes of age."

"And he's a psionic," Emma prompted, starting to feel dizzy and wondering how long she could cover it up. Adam had enough to worry about. She needed to rest before starting out again into the Overworld, but Shalimar needed her now…

"Right. I had him here at Sanctuary a couple of years before you arrived, Emma. I even toyed with the idea of putting him on the team. I've known all along that we needed a psionic to round things out."

"Why didn't you?"

Adam sighed. "The easy answer is that he was too young. Y.J. was twelve, almost thirteen, going through puberty with powers that were erratic: through the roof one day and practically non-existent the next. I worked with him, gave him training exercises to help him learn to control his powers. He was another empath, like you, Emma. He could project better than receive, but I think that was a matter of youthfulness."

"And—?" Emma pushed. It was getting harder and harder to concentrate. The pain in her temples made her want to simply lie down and go to sleep.

Adam shrugged. "He worked diligently at controlling his powers, practiced every chance he could get. Then his father took him away. I think he saw an opportunity to use Y.J. and his abilities in gambling. There was nothing I could do. Legally his father was his guardian, and going to court to plead for custody on the basis of genetic powers is not something that will go over well with any judge. And Y.J. was clinging to his father at that point; the boy's mother had just died. The father was all Y.J. had left for a family. His father won, I lost, even before a battle could begin." He smiled warmly at Emma. "Far from being a catastrophe. It allowed me to find you. I'd say that more than makes up for the loss of Y.J."

Emma fixed her mentor with a discerning eye. "That's not all, Adam."

"What—?" Adam had the grace not to go any further. His face fell. "Stop reading my thoughts."

"You know I can't do that, Adam. I only sense feelings, and you're broadcasting louder than that awful punk rock band that Brennan likes. You feel guilty about Y.J. There was something wrong." She cocked her head, analyzing the emotions that were emitting from her mentor. "And you weren't really all that sorry to see Y.J. leave. Why?"

The shoulders slumped. "There was no proof. Shalimar didn't like him all that much, but I thought it was just a teen-age phase. Y.J. was younger than Shalimar as well, had a crush on her, and she didn't have any use for him. There was no proof that Y.J. was involved with anything."

"There rarely is with empaths. What did he do? What did Shal think he did?"

"I was never certain." Adam looked back up, seeking solace for himself in whatever fashion he could. "Jesse had arrived just a few months before. He was in pretty bad shape at that point; Eckhart's people had been doing a lot of 'testing' on him. The nightmares had just started to go away when Y.J. arrived. The two formed an immediate bond over Sanctuary's computers. I forget which games they got into, but they linked up as a cyber-team to beat the various levels of every game. I think they went through the first one in a month, and the second even faster. But after being around Y.J. for three months, the nightmares came back."

"You think Y.J. was manipulating Jesse's dreams."

"There was no proof," Adam repeated, mostly to reassure himself. "But the nightmares vanished for good after Y.J. left. It was just coincidence."

"What did Y.J. have against Jesse?"

"That's just it: nothing. They both liked computers, and they used to play video games after hours. They liked each other, even though Y.J. was a few years younger. Jesse used to say that age didn't matter when you were online. There was no reason to think that Y.J. was tormenting Jesse at night. In fact, having Y.J. around was good for Jesse. Jesse got to be an 'older brother' for a change, someone in control. That was important for Jesse's self image at the time."

"Bottom line, you don't want Y.J. to be the culprit here, even though you're afraid that he is." Emma settled herself back into a lotus position. "Instead of wasting time, let's find out." She closed her eyes.

With the picture in her hand and Adam's own thoughts to guide her, finding the boy was literally child's play. What she found, however, was no child.

Anger radiated from Y.J. even before she came close. It was anger, coupled with the agony of grief and loss. Instinctively she knew that Y.J. had just become an orphan. He had no one left in the world as of a mere few days ago. She delved further, careful to stay away from the 'private' areas of the boy's mind. Only the public parts, the parts that were broadcasting, were legitimate targets. And in a fifteen year old boy, there were plenty of those.

There was a multitude of emotions to be found inside of Yves-Jacques St. Legere: the thrill of victory when Y.J.'s father had, as Adam had suspected, used the boy to cheat at cards, reading the emotions of the other poker players in order to tell who was bluffing and who had a solid hand to bet with.

But it went further than that, further than even Y.J.'s father knew: Y.J. would use his abilities to cause even solid poker players to make poor bets. The stack of coins at each game would rise dramatically at the end due to Y.J.'s manipulation. And part of that stack would usually end up in Y.J.'s own hoard, safe from his father. It was a cold and sullen triumph that colored Y.J.'s emotions, the need to be able to live without others, not to depend on anyone else. That was the reason for the boy's hidden stash. Not an unexpected reaction, Emma thought. If she'd grown up with a grasping parent, eager to use her own powers for their selfish ends, Emma would have behaved in the same fashion.

But there was more: Y.J. had no problem with walking up to rich old ladies and 'manipulating' them into giving him large sums of money. Usually there would be some sort of task, walking the poodle or carrying groceries. But the 'reward' would be exorbitant. And the money would end up safe from the senior St. Legere's greedy betting ways, and into Y.J.'s hoard.

This was not a pleasant young man, certainly not the youngster that Adam remembered. This was a boy who had grown into a punk who was accustomed to getting his own way in whatever fashion he needed to. If this boy had not had his mutant abilities, Emma was certain, he would have ended up in a local gang dealing drugs. And, most likely, dying of it.

Emma considered. If she went further, delved deeper into Y.J.'s mind, she would be able to determine once and for all if this boy was responsible for Shalimar's condition. But that was going beyond the boundaries of etiquette; she would be as bad as Y.J. himself. There was no thought of Adam or of Shalimar, no thought of Mutant X or Sanctuary. And, try as she might, Emma couldn't convince herself that the tendril of thought that she'd retrieved from Shalimar's mind was definitely from Y.J. Her gut said yes, but her mind—where it counted—wasn't sure.

Rock and a hard place. What to do? Emma thought of her own moral upbringing, her own set of values. Could she violate another's mind without clear evidence of guilt? All she had was a tendril of suspicion, a hint that someone, somewhere, was doing evil to Shalimar and, by proxy, to Mutant X. Emma decided that she couldn't probe Y.J. any further. She surfaced.

"Emma?" Adam looked worried. "Emma, you were gone a long time. Are you all right?"

"Of course I am," Emma started to say, when she realized that standing up would be a problem. She allowed Adam to lay her back on her bed, wishing the room would stop swirling around. He administered a sip of cold water; it helped to ground her.

"What did you find out?"

The shivering started. Emma hated that, hated when it happened because it always meant that she had been 'out' too long. Her body rebelled against that. She tried to still her hands, grasped the cup of water more firmly to pretend that it wasn't happening.

Adam wasn't fooled. "How far did you go?" he demanded. "Emma, you were 'gone' for almost an hour!"

An hour? Emma blinked. It was impossible to keep track of time 'out there'. No wonder she felt so wrung out, and Adam so upset. Normally she tried to keep it down to a moment or two, a brief flash of a feeling. But this had been far more important, Y.J.'s emotions far more complex. Yet she felt as though she had barely touched the surface.

"Sorry," she muttered, covering her weakness by taking another sip.

Adam wasn't fooled, replaced the water with something stronger, something with replacement fluids and electrolytes as if she had run a marathon. Emma drank it thirstily, her body automatically craving the energy. It worked: her hands stopped shaking.

Adam sat back, only partly satisfied. "Now, what happened? Did you find Y.J.?"

Emma nodded, not sure if she should trust her voice.

"And?"

Emma frowned. "To be honest, I'm not sure, Adam. I couldn't get deep enough. He's well shielded."

"So it could be him."

"I'm not sure," Emma repeated thoughtfully. "Adam, his father just died. That much I could tell. He's hurt, and grieving. But he's also very angry, and I'm not sure at who. He ought to be angry at his father for dying and leaving him—that would be usual, especially in someone his age—but that just didn't feel like the right answer. And I couldn't risk going in any further, not without him knowing that I was there, and I didn't have enough to go on to try that. One thing I do know: I didn't pick up any trace of thinking about you or Shalimar. No mutants at all." She carefully didn't mention the other parts she'd found, the cunning that Y.J. had developed, the schemes that he'd run at other peoples' expense. _Adam had enough guilt; he didn't need this particular mutant added to his list of sins. Better to concentrate on Shalimar_.

Adam nodded. "Back to square one." He sighed. "If it's not a psionic, then it has to be Shalimar's genes, something I've overlooked." He looked at Emma, frowning. "You need some rest, young lady. In fact, you need a lot of rest."

"I'm all right," Emma lied, her head pounding.

Adam wasn't fooled. "Sleep now, or I'll get the same sedative that I gave to Shalimar," he threatened. "I'll take it from here. You've done your part; you've checked out any possible mutant that could be doing this to Shalimar. Now rest. I'll contact the guys," Adam told her. He tapped at the computer console, networking into the mainframe to open the communication grid. "Brennan? Jesse?"

"Right here, Adam," came back Jesse's voice almost immediately. "You got something? Like a cure, maybe?"

"Still working on it." They could hear the pain in the scientist's voice at not yet being successful to help the feral. "You get Shalimar back?"

"Still working on it." The mimicry was deliberate, but there was no laughter. "Almost had her, but she got antsy and bolted before we could trank her. We're tracking her now."

"It's weird, Adam." Brennan put his two cents in. "One minute she's as calm and polite as you please. The next she's ready to turn on us. You never know what's going to set her off. Listen, I've seen lions with better dispositions. Safer, too."

"Be careful," Adam warned. "Next time you get close to her, don't even try to talk. Just shoot her with the tranquilizer dart, and let us sort it out back here in Sanctuary. You can't help her by trying to talk her down. This is not Shalimar. Her mutant genes are doing this to her."

"You got that right. Believe me, Adam, the tranks are ready and waiting. Out."

Adam sat back into the chair and regarded Emma. She mustered a game smile. "I can hone in on Shalimar and see if there's—"

"No," Adam interrupted. "Not yet. You need to recover your strength. Give yourself a few hours rest, then we'll see. I don't want you attempting anything more until I give you the okay. I still think you have a concussion."

"No, I don't."

"Let me prove it. I'll get my medical kit."

Emma sank back onto the bed, beaten. "Okay. You win. I'll rest. But wake me in an hour. That should be enough time."

Adam smiled sternly. "If I see the whites of your eyes in less than eight hours, I'm coming with the leftover tranquilizers."

Brennan turned to Jesse. "You notice he didn't mention Emma."

"Right. He always does that when he has her doing something that he thinks we won't approve of. Something dangerous, usually, involving psionics. Which makes sense to me. If Adam can't find anything, then it has to be another mutant doing this to Shalimar."

"Unless Shalimar is really going crazy. Not mutant crazy, but honest-to-Bedlam I-need-my-lithium crazy."

"You think she really could? And not have us notice something before this?"

Brennan sighed. "Probably not." He sighed again. "Gotta be another mutant. Think we ought to head back?"

Jesse considered. "Nope. Not without Shalimar. Whatever it is, whoever it is, Emma is in the thick of it, and won't let us touch. She'll just give us the 'only I can do this' routine, nearly blow up all of Sanctuary, and everything will turn out all right. Maybe if we stay out here we won't get caught in the fall out."

Brennan simply looked at him. "You believe that load of crap?"

"No. But can you think of a better way to handle it?"

"Yeah. We can get Shalimar and haul her back to Sanctuary."

"Okay. Sounds good to me." Jesse turned the scanner back on. "Looks like she's not more than a mile up ahead." He pointed. "After you."

Brennan sniffed. "Let's try this the easy way."

"There's an easy way? Why didn't we try that first?"

Brennan ignored the quip, and lifted his hand to his face. "Shalimar?" he said into the comm. link. "Shal, you there?"

"Brennan?" She sounded confused, and not a little frightened.

"Shalimar, where are you?"

"Brennan, what's going on?" Definitely confused, and losing ground fast. Brennan realized that getting his team mate back to a secure area was taking on a new and higher level of priority. No matter what the cause, Shalimar needed their help.

"Shalimar, you've been sick. Your mutation is getting out of control. Tell us where you are so that we can come help you," he pleaded.

"I'm not sure where I am."

That was clearly not a good sign. Shalimar, not knowing where she was outside? That was unthinkable. Shalimar had an unbeatable sense of direction.

Brennan exchanged glances with Jesse, who bent once again to his scanner. "Then stay where you are," he said into the comm. link. "We'll find you. Jesse has his scanner."

"I've got you, Shal," Jesse added reassuringly. "We're not far away. Sit down, and don't go anywhere." He pointed. "This way, Brennan."

"Let's not dawdle," Brennan agreed, and kept up a running line of conversation with Shalimar. "I'm going to assume there are trees where you are, Shal. What else? Any identifying marks we can look for? Big boulders that look like a bear? Big bears that look like boulders?"

"There's a cliff not too far away. Pretty steep."

Brennan exchanged a significant glance with Jesse. "How about you move away from the cliff?" he suggested. "Not too far. Just so that no one will fall over. You know how I am about heights."

"I never knew you had acrophobia," Jesse murmured, his attention on the scanner.

"I don't. But I do have a fear of Shalimar falling off the cliff, or the edge giving way while she or I am near it, while she's in this condition. You heard her, bro; her mind is definitely being affected by this thing, whatever it is."

"Got it." Jesse slung the scanner back over his back, and they started off at a fast jog toward their team mate. There was no time to waste.


	3. Chapter 3

Genetic, or psionic? At this point, he truly didn't know. All of his genetic work wasn't turning up anything, and Emma's talents were letting them down. Adam Kane needed to turn his attention to other avenues of exploration. There had to be a link somewhere, somehow, and Adam was determined to find it.

The computer was his tool of choice, and Adam was an expert in its use. A quick scan of mutants had turned up three possibilities, all of which Emma had ruled out. Well, she hadn't quite ruled out the St. Legere boy, but Adam could leave him alone for now. Certainly he wasn't affecting Shalimar when Emma had briefly touched his mind, and that suggested that he wasn't involved. Adam would have to look elsewhere for an answer.

Logic was the answer: first, ask the right question. Who was capable of doing this? If it was a who, then it had to be a psionic. Adam didn't kid himself that he had every mutant in his database, but the majority were referenced. He set up his search parameters to pull off every psionic he had.

Better. That left him with something over fifty suspects. _Suspects_. He hated using that word, but could think of no other. Which one of these would hate Shalimar so much that they would want to destroy her mind? No, not the correct question to ask. Who would hate either Shalimar or _himself_ so much that they would want to destroy her mind? For surely who ever it was would understand that harming the feral would be as devastating to Adam himself as to the young woman who had won his affection. All right, expand the winnowed list to include those who knew either Shalimar or himself. Which left something more than sixty possibles, including the St. Legere boy.

Hah. He could narrow it down by a few more. He'd forgotten to exclude those who were dead or podded by Genomex. No, keep the pods. There was always the possibility that Mason Eckhart had released one by accident or design. Likewise, Adam didn't feel justified in eliminating those with powers too weak to be able to pull something like this off. Powers would change, some weakened and some increased in range and scope—witness his work with his own team—and Adam wouldn't know whose powers had taken a turn for the worse until an incident like this rambled onto the radar. But the psionic mutants who were definitely dead could be ruled out.

Great. Sixty minus three left fifty-seven suspects to explore.

Wait. It wasn't only psionics who could do this. Adam was limiting his search using a false assumption. A simple poison could also affect the feral, and that could be administered by anyone, whether psionic, mutant, or just plain human.

Adam sighed, and started to enter new parameters: who would want to harm Shalimar and/or himself?

The list got a whole lot longer.

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Emma waited until Adam left her alone for a restorative nap before closing her eyes.

Not, however, to sleep. Adam was right, she did need to recuperate from her extended journey on the psionic plane, but Emma was never one to rest when one of her 'family' was in trouble. And Shalimar was clearly in trouble. Her earlier touch of the feral's mind assured her of that. Much more damage to Shalimar's mind, and the girl would never recover. Something was doing this, and although Emma couldn't tell whether it was organic or psionic, she could see the results. Shalimar was being slowly driven insane.

So Emma prepared to go hunting in her own way, to defend the sister who was closer than a blood relation. It took only a moment to find the familiar mind, and to link.

Shalimar was outside, at one with nature and her feral nature, drinking in the smells of the forest around her. Emma could feel no danger around her, nothing menacing. But Shalimar was disturbed, was upset, and Emma delved deeper to determine the cause.

It wasn't hard to find. There was clear damage to Shalimar's higher thought processes. That which kept her human was slowly being eroded away by an outside force. No wonder the feral would go wild, Emma mused. She was being slowly driven insane, using her mutation against her. A touch against this lobe, slight pressure there, and Shalimar would react like a cornered wild animal.

How was this happening? The tendril that Emma had thought that she felt earlier was gone. Had she imagined it? Perhaps this was truly of bio-chemical origin, and she had been wrong to suggest to Adam that it was psionic. She could be wasting valuable time that Adam needed to cure Shalimar. For there was only one end in sight for the feral if this situation went unchecked: madness and death.

Emma now had two tasks to accomplish: one, tell Adam to resume his search for a genetic cure and two, calm Shalimar as much as she was able. Hopefully Emma could keep the feral under control for as long as it took for Adam to come up with a cure. A real cure, not this frantic searching for a mystery psionic on a vengeance mission.

Carefully Emma spread a soothing psychic balm over the damaged areas in Shalimar's mind, isolating the wild thoughts that drove the feral to lash out at her pack members and run. She could feel the tension abate, could feel Shalimar sink to the ground in exhaustion to wait for her team mates to catch up with her. Satisfied, Emma allowed herself to withdraw from Shalimar's mind. And, as Emma had feared, the empath had found no trace of psionic tampering from any other source. The tendril had been imagined.

She tried to get up to go tell Adam that he had been right all along, that Shalimar was suffering from some sort of genetic illness, and that he should resume his work in the lab to come up with a cure. Emma tried to get up. But the exertions from her previous excursion coupled with her recent efforts proved too much for the girl. She never realized when she sank to the carpeted floor and quietly passed out.

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"Hi, guys." Shalimar had a sheepish look on her face. She was sitting cross-legged on the ground, leaning against a rock. The usual ebullience was missing; beneath the exterior there was a very scared feral.

The cliff, however, was still nearby. Only a few dozen yards away. Not close enough for the edge to fall off and take a few unhappy members of Mutant X with it, but still close enough to be seen. And that, as far as Brennan was concerned, was too close.

"Hey, Shal," he said. He stuck out his hand. "Ready to come home?"

"Yeah." Shalimar rose smoothly to her feet. "I feel like an idiot. I'm really sorry about what happened."

"Not your fault," Brennan said. "You didn't ask for this. None of us did. C'mon. Let's go."

But Jesse stopped him. "Brennan, Adam said to trank her."

"Jess, look at her. She's not going to run away. She's okay."

"Right now," Jesse agreed. "Remember what happened before?" He turned back to his 'big sister'. "Shal, I'm really sorry about this, but I think we need to tranquilize you. Just so nothing happens. I promise, Brennan and I will look out for you."

Shalimar made a face, but not, as Brennan feared, the look that suggested her feral nature was about to take over. He held his breath, but Shalimar only asked with a plaintive air, "do you have to?"

Jesse grimaced. "I think so. Adam wouldn't have told us to if he didn't think it was best."

Shalimar sighed. "Okay." She held out her arm. "Where do I get it? The arm? The back? Neck? I've got a bare thigh here."

Jesse stopped Brennan from unlimbering the trank gun. "I think we can take one of the darts and administer it a little more pleasantly, don't you?"

Brennan nodded soberly. As much as he enjoyed kidding Shalimar, the thought of shooting her hurt. Even if it was only a tranquilizer dart. They were team mates. Shalimar had saved his butt more times than he cared to count, and the thought of deliberately picking up a gun and aiming it at her… He wrestled one of the extra darts out of his pack. "You gonna let us do this, Shal?"

Shalimar sighed. "Yeah." And gave a half-smile. "You can come and get me. I won't bite."

"It's not the biting that I'm worried about." But Brennan and Jesse approached the feral cautiously, Brennan with the dart in his hand.

"Now I feel really guilty," Shalimar complained, allowing Brennan to take her gently by the arm. The elemental was clearly afraid that she would suddenly bolt. "I lead you on a wild goose chase up this mountain, and now you get the pleasure of carrying me back with snores echoing through the foothills. You can always trank me later, Brennan," she suggested hopefully. "Then I can walk down the mountain."

"I'll manage." He prepared to stab her with the dart, amazed at how hard it was to do the task himself. It was so much easier from a distance, with the gun. He almost wished that he had. _How did doctors and nurses learn to do this?_

"No, I really think I want to walk."

_Oops. Rising hysteria in her voice_. Brennan's stomach tightened uncomfortably. Time to dart her now. He drew his hand back.

Shalimar's own hand flashed out and knocked the dart away. It flew out of his hand and rolled onto the dirt.

But that wasn't all. One leg slammed out in a devastating kick, and Brennan went flying back to land on his backside. Another swoop, and Jesse too went flying.

"Get her!" he yelled.

Brennan scrambled for the dart, for the trank gun, anything. Adam had been right. Trank her from a distance, don't give her a chance to fight back, no matter how calm she appears at the moment. He pulled the gun into position, aimed swiftly, and fired.

Missed.

No, that wasn't fair to his aim. His sight was true, but Shalimar anticipated his actions and ducked with super-human speed. She dodged the dart and took off, escaping. Her path took her dangerously near the cliff, but that didn't bother the feral. Running on the edge was just the adrenaline she craved.

"Shalimar!" Jesse yelled. He ran; he was close enough to intercept her. And he was the only one with the power to hold her safely for as long as it took for Brennan to inject her with the life-saving tranquilizer. He leaped on top of her, grabbed her around her chest, and phased solid. "Brennan! Get the dart!"

Brennan didn't bother looking for the dart that had been kicked out of his hands. He grabbed the final dart in his pocket, pulling it out as fast as he could. There was no time to waste. As soon as Jesse ran out of breath he would be forced to un-phase and then Shalimar would be loose and running.

Shalimar yowled with rage. There was no other word for it; there was nothing human in her cry. She struggled in Jesse's rock hard grasp, trying desperately to escape. But the molecular's arms were too strong to be overcome.

Brennan advanced. Shalimar saw no chance, no way to slip out of Jesse's embrace. There was only one way to escape.

She butted her head against Jesse's. He grunted; it hurt, but in his solid state it hurt her more. He refused to let go.

She butted again, this time not seeking to escape but to set him off balance. It worked; the duo started to topple over.

"Jesse!" Brennan yelled.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Jesse refused to let go as the pair lost their balance. They were too close to the edge of the cliff, and the dirt was too unstable. It gave way. Jesse and Shalimar disappeared off of the cliff in a shower of rocks.

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"Adam! Adam!"

"Brennan!" Adam interrupted his computer search at the panic in the elemental's voice. He scrambled to clink on the link. "What's wrong?"

"It's Shalimar! She went completely wild, and she fell over the cliff! They're both gone!"

"What? Brennan, slow down. Tell me what happened."

"We went to trank her, and she went wild. Jesse grabbed her, intending to keep her steady while I administered the trank, and she took him off the cliff with her!"

"All right." Adam thought swiftly, a cold inferno of fear racing through him. "Are they alive?"

"Shalimar is. She's trapped on a small ledge. I can hear her growling, and I can sometimes see her if I lean over the cliff. She's pacing back and forth."

"Not too far," Adam said, alarmed. "I don't want you falling as well. Jesse?"

"I can't see him, or hear him. He's not answering his comm. But, Adam, Shalimar's gone completely crazy. All she does is growl, like an animal!"

"You still have the trank gun?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid if she goes under, she'll fall off the ledge. It's not very wide, Adam." The elemental paused. "Look, maybe if I go down there, I can get her to calm down, maybe administer the tranquilizer. I can find out what happened to Jesse."

"No!" Adam commanded. "No, we can't risk you falling as well. Stay there until I can come with ropes and pulleys. Just watch, and see if Shalimar will calm down on her own."

"I hope you're coming up with some good news on your end, because over this way it looks pretty bad. You get an antidote yet?"

"I'm getting there, Brennan. I'm getting there." _I hope_, he added to himself. "Listen to me. Just watch her, and see if you can spot Jesse or contact him on the comm. link. Keep me posted. I'm going to get Emma and we'll come out to help. Just stay calm. We're coming."

Which is when he found Emma collapsed on the floor of her bedroom.

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"Emma!" Adam exclaimed. He hurried to her, helped to get her up onto her bed. It took only moments to determine that the empath was all right but exhausted. "Emma, you have to stop doing this to yourself. You can't help Shalimar if you wear yourself out."

"I'm all right," Emma lied. "I'm just a little tired."

"Hah." There was no fooling Adam. "You went out again, didn't you? Into the psionic planes? Looking for psionics? Or for Shalimar?"

Emma nodded slowly. Her head hurt just to do that much. "I found Shalimar, but I didn't find anything else. Adam, I think you were right in the first place. It has to be something internal, not a psionic. I touched Shalimar's mind, and it was awful! It was like trying to link with an angry lion. It's as if Shalimar wasn't there."

"Her feral nature is taking over," Adam agreed. "But, Emma, I couldn't find anything wrong physically. The blood samples I took all came back normal. It can't be her genetic structure."

"But, how…?" Emma trailed off as a new idea came through. "Maybe it's not a psionic, maybe not even a mutant. It could also be a normal human, giving Shalimar some sort of poison that I haven't been able to trace."

"I came up with the same thought," Adam agreed.

"And that would explain why I was able to calm Shalimar," Emma pushed. Adam raised his eyebrows: _when was this?_ Emma squirmed. "A little while ago. I felt fine," she added quickly. "And Shalimar needed me. I was able to soothe her. I felt it; she was cooperating with Brennan and Jesse."

"Right," Adam said grimly. "She cooperated so well that she took herself and Jesse off a cliff."

"What?"

"Which must have happened right after you got out of her mind," Adam realized. "Whichever it is, psionic or poison, you calmed her enough for the guys to get close to Shalimar. The moment you stopped," and he glared at the girl for extending herself too far, "Shalimar's feral nature took back over and drove Shalimar out of control. Brennan says that she's totally feral. She's worse now. He can't get through to her."

"Then I have to get out there!" Emma exclaimed. "Adam, the closer I am to Shalimar, the easier it will be to get into her mind."

"No. You're in no condition to go anywhere," Adam contradicted. "And furthermore, I don't think it's in anyone's best interests for you to get close to Shalimar at this point. I've been doing some thinking about how Shalimar has been acting. What's the thing that has most often set Shalimar off?"

Emma began to see. She sank into a bed cushions in a smaller heap. "Me. Whenever the guys say something about me, Shalimar loses it."

"Right. Instinctively she knows that you are the one person she can't fool. So if you go waltzing over there, Shalimar is going to leap straight for you and try to tear you limb from limb. Which is why we can't have you going out there. No, we need another plan." Adam began to pace back and forth, turning over idea after idea and discarding them as ineffective or worse. He stopped. "This isn't getting us anywhere. Emma, you rest. When we get Shalimar back here, I'm going to use you to keep her calm so that I can work, but only when we have Shalimar in a controlled environment. That's the only thing I can think of. I'll need more samples if I'm going to go hunting in the dark for whatever poison someone is giving her, and the only way to get those samples—unadulterated by tranquilizers—is to have you work with me. Which means that I need you in top form, not passing out from being over-extended. Hear me?"

"I hear you, Adam. But—"

"No buts. Get some sleep. Now, Emma."

"What about you?"

Adam frowned. "The only thing I can do right now. Brennan needs help to get Shalimar under control." He carefully didn't say anything about Jesse. Was the molecular alive or dead after falling off the cliff face? Adam didn't want to admit the possibility even to himself. "Brennan and I will get them all back here to Sanctuary. Then I'll fix things."

_I hope_ was left unsaid.

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Brennan lay himself flat on the ground, the better to spread his weight over the largest possible area, peering over the edge of the cliff. He could barely see the ledge where Shalimar continued to pace. He looked for the feral, even the slightest glimpse of her. There she was—no, wait. Shalimar leaped effortlessly onto the next ledge over. The second ledge was no wider than the first, but the feral showed no hesitation, landing in the very center as easily as a mountain cat.

Good. It was easier to see her on the second ledge, even though the sight tore at his heart. Shalimar was truly all animal now, growling and sniffing at the various plants and stunted shrubbery that grew into the face of the cliff. Brennan had called to her not ten minutes ago, and she had answered him with a savage snarl, leaping up only to fall short of the top of the cliff. Brennan's heart had been in his mouth as he watched her drop back to the ledge, only relaxing when she arrived safe but furious at being unable to reach her foe. Her mind may have been gone but she still had the reflexes of a cat, landing on her feet every time.

There was nothing remaining of Shalimar, that he could see. The blonde ringlets were now dirty and bedraggled, and she was as likely to go on all fours as to stretch up on her hind paws, sniffing the air for the scent of her prey. Brennan couldn't see, but there was no doubt in his mind that her eyes had gone cat-golden; no humanity left in them.

The tranquilizer gun lay at his feet, ready for use, but Brennan didn't see the point. If he shot her now—assuming he could from this angle—she could easily fall off of the ledge to the valley below and her death.

Shalimar leaped back to the first ledge, disappearing from view for an instant. Then Brennan saw her again, a flicker of dirty blonde hair flying in the wind.

Of Jesse there was still no sign. Once again, as he'd done for the last fifty times over the last hour, he brought his comm. link to his face. "Jesse? You hear me, bro?"

"Brennan?"

_Yes!_ The sound was tremulous, the voice weak, but alive!

Brennan all but pounced on his comm. link. "Jesse! Where are you, man? I can't see you."

"On a ledge. No way up or down." There was a pause. "Shal's here, too." Another pause, longer this time. "She's not looking too good, Brennan."

_Neither are you, by the sound of it_. But Brennan didn't let that thought come out in the open. "You into a little rock-climbing, Jess? Adam's on his way with some rope, but it'll be a little while. Soon as we have a safety rope, you can crawl up the face of the cliff."

A cough. "Ah, I think I'd better pass on that, Brennan. I'm pretty sure that my leg is broken. Don't think it's gonna work well enough for rock climbing."

Brennan swallowed hard. _Great_. That meant rappelling down to a narrow ledge, trussing Jesse up with some sort of sling, and hoisting him bodily up the rock face. "Maybe it's only sprained."

"I'd like to think so, but there's some jagged stuff coming out through the skin that looks kind of like bone. Little bit of blood, too." Jesse was working hard to keep cool, that much Brennan could tell.The molecularcontinued, "I'd really appreciate it if you could tell Adam to get a move on. Shalimar's got a funny look in her eye."

"That's her feral look, bro."

"I know. And I'm feeling like the blue plate special."

Brennan went cold. Shalimar wouldn't… She couldn't…But, right now, there was no telling what she was capable of. What he could see of her was sheer animal, pacing back and forth and working herself up into a frenzy. She would blink into his view and then, snarling, stalk out. If he didn't know better, he would say that there was a mountain lion on that ledge. "Jesse, I think you'd better describe very carefully what you see."

There was silence.

"Jesse?"

"Right here, Brennan." If anything, his voice sounded weaker.

"Describe it, bro. I've got Adam on the way."

Sigh. "Two ledges, both approximately twelve yards long but only three or four wide, five at the widest. I've got a boulder and a shallow cave on my side. Shal's got nothing on her ledge. She's open to the wind."

"She's not staying on her side, is she, Jesse?"

"She was here a few minutes ago, but jumped over to where she is now. I don't think she likes being too close to me."

"Right now, that sounds good. I don't think I want her too close to you, not in this state. She look pretty comfy over there?"

Silence.

"Jess?"

"Yeah. I guess. Just…don't take too long, okay, Brennan?"


	4. Chapter 4

Adam looked over his equipment with dismay. It wasn't what he had that was wrong, it was lack of it. As in: manpower. Rope he had, and more tranquilizer darts. But how to get down to Shalimar to be able to trank her? Brennan was the best shot, and by all accounts Shalimar had dodged his one shot as if the dart was moving in slow motion. No, they needed Emma to keep Shalimar under control, and right now his only empath was lying all but comatose in her bed, worn out. What had possessed the girl to over-extend herself like that? Adam slammed the counter top in frustration. Emma's heart was in the right place but her head—the part that was needed—was getting soft.

More and more it looked like some sort of slow acting poison had been administered to the feral. Adam hadn't been able to find anything, but he hadn't been looking for poison. He'd been going on the assumption that it was a genetic malfunction. Emma had assumed that it was a psionic attacker. Both of them were likely wrong, but that wouldn't do any good now.

Manpower. That was the resource most needed. Manpower to research the poison in Shalimar's body, manpower to rescue Shalimar and Jesse from the cliff ledge—_please, please let Jesse be there, and alive_—and manpower, or empath power to keep Shalimar from killing her would-be saviors. Manpower: there wasn't enough to go around. He couldn't be in two places at once; working in his lab on an antidote, or going to the cliff to work with Brennan.

Priorities: all the antidote in the world wouldn't help if they couldn't trap Shalimar and bring her in. Decision made: Adam would go to the cliff.

He tapped on his comm. link. "Brennan," he called. "I'm on my way. How's Shalimar?" _And Jesse_, his heart wanted to cry.

Brennan heard the unspoken plea. "Jesse's alive, Adam," he said immediately. "I just heard from him. But he's in bad shape."

"How bad?" Adam began to mentally add a medical kit to his supplies.

"I'm not sure. I still can't see him. He thinks his leg is broken."

"We'll need a stretcher, then. And a splint." Major relief was the overwhelming emotion. It didn't matter how badly hurt the molecular was; he was alive!

"More rope," Brennan told Adam. "Jesse's stuck on another ledge. Shalimar's nearby," he added nervously. "Don't take too long."

"I won't." Adam cut the link. He turned away, only to turn back at a call coming in. He almost ignored it, but thought better of it. They needed manpower; Adam had plenty of contacts to call on, plenty of favors he could call in. If this was one of them…

"Yes?"

"Dr. Adam?"

The voice was deeper than it had been at twelve, and the hair much shaggier, but Yves-Jacques St. Legere still looked much the same. But the eyes now were haunted by grief, and Adam recalled what Emma had said when she'd lightly scanned him: that Y.J.'s father was dead. That Y.J. was now an orphan. Which meant that the authorities were likely sniffing around him, wanting to put him into a foster home of some kind. The worst sort of place for a teen-age empath.

Yet another drain on scarce resources. Adam wanted to help the boy, but now was not the time.

Okay, how to talk to the boy swiftly without making him feel unwanted? Adam was familiar with the kind of feelings a mutant teen-ager could have: he'd lived through several of them here in Sanctuary. Adam plunged ahead.

"Y.J.," he greeted him. "I just heard about your father. I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Me, too." Y.J. looked down at the floor on his end.

"Calling for help?" Cut to the chase.

"Yeah." Y.J. looked relieved at this evidence of telepathy in a normal human, not realizing that normals could also rely on intuition and common sense.

"You've got it," Adam said immediately, "but right now I've got a crisis. Give me a number where you can be reached, and I'll get to you. Can you hold out for twenty-four hours?" It shouldn't take longer than that to get Shalimar under control, he reasoned. Worst case scenario, they could capture the feral, put her under wraps, and then send Brennan and Emma out to pick up the boy. Y.J. didn't know either of them, but that shouldn't make a difference. Y.J. would empathically know that they were from Adam and could be trusted.

A little niggling thought tugged at Adam: what if this boy was the cause of Shalimar's condition? What if Y.J. himself couldn't be trusted? He quashed the thought firmly. If so, better to keep an eye on him. Emma had mostly ruled him out as a suspect, and if she was wrong then having the kid right here would bring the matter to a head.

Y.J. bit his lip. Did it look artful? Adam couldn't tell. "I…I'm not sure. The lady from Child Welfare is getting pretty close. She may try to take me this afternoon." He rushed on. "Dr. Adam, I'm not far away. I'm right in town. I can come to where ever you say and you can get me real quick. Maybe I can help with your crisis. My powers are getting stronger all the time."

Maybe he could, at that. Another thought occurred to Adam: assuming that Y.J. was on the level, another empath to help control Shalimar would only benefit the situation. There was no telling how strong an empath had to be in order to calm a feral down. Emma was powerful, but exhausted. Y.J. really could be a benefit. And, at fifteen, Y.J. didn't have his full adult growth but would still be strong enough to help with hauling whichever bodies needed hauling up a steep cliff with a lot of rope. Last benefit: helping Adam and Mutant X would be a perfect way to tell an orphaned kid that someone really needed him. Which, to be honest, they did.

Decision made: "I'll be there in a few moments. Plan to dump your stuff in my car, and we'll head directly out to where the others are. We'll regroup at Sanctuary later."

The relief on Y.J.'s face was obvious, and Adam felt guilty for ever doubting the kid. That kind of relief couldn't be faked. And Emma had cleared him, for the most part.

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"Talk to me, Jesse." Brennan was trying his best to hang over the edge of the cliff and not disturb any more of the loose dirt. A few pebbles gave way, but nothing more. "I can't see much. Talk to me. Tell me what's happening down there."

"My mouth is dry," Jesse mentioned, as much to say something rather than a real complaint. "My leg hurts. And Shalimar is looking hungry."

"Shalimar is always hungry. Comes from having a feral nature. She burns off calories like a bonfire in a feather pillow factory. She showing signs of settling down for a nap?"

"Nope." Jesse was sounding nervous. And tired. And wiped. "Think you've got enough rope to lower the trank gun down to me?"

_Uh-oh_. "She looking that bad?"

"Uh, I hate to put it this way, but: yes. And cover is in short supply on this ledge, even supposing I could move to it."

Brennan eyeballed the lightweight but sturdy nylon line that Jesse had stuffed into his pack when he hiked out here with the scanner and trank gun. "I can try, but I don't think there's enough. If you're going to fall off a cliff, Jess, you really ought to plan better and bring extra rope. Adding in a couple of shoelaces isn't going to do the trick."

"I'll remember next time. Uh, oh—Brennan, she's jumping over to this ledge. Shalimar, it's okay!" Jesse yelled. "Shalimar, stay where you are."

"Jesse, what's going on?" Brennan found it hard to keep from yelling himself.

"Brennan, I really think you need to toss that trank gun down now." Jesse's voice was calm, but Jesse was not. "Shalimar—ow! Shalimar, keep your hands off. That hurts!"

"Jesse?"

"Brennan, Shalimar's looking really weird. Not just mutant weird, I mean crazy weird—ow!" The comm. link cut off, but the shout could be heard straight up the cliff face.

"Jesse?"

No response on the comm. link, but an agonized groan could be heard below, long and drawn out, then disintegrating into a series of coughs. The sound of someone trying to regain their breath after not breathing. Not breathing because of the pain that had just been inflicted. Then there was another tortured yell, one that suddenly cut off in the middle.

"Jesse! Shalimar!" No answer. Just a lot of inhuman growling in a feminine register. "Jesse, try to move back." Still no response.

He had to do something. Brennan inched over the cliff face, trying for a better view.

Hah. That was it. He could just barely see Shalimar crouched over her teammate, poking and prodding at him, pushing and tweaking at what looked uncomfortably like blood covered bone parts sticking out of a pant leg. Jesse had gone limp—passed out? Brennan hoped so, because what Shalimar was doing had to hurt something fierce.

No choice. He had to chance it. Stretching out one long arm, Brennan fired up the electricity and aimed.

Missed! A chunk of cliff ledge tumbled down, victim of Brennan's lightning bolt.

But it had the desired effect: startled, Shalimar leaped back onto the far ledge and away from Jesse. Brennan remembered to breathe.

He watched the feral from his new vantage point. Far from being mollified, Shalimar was pacing back and forth on the narrow ledge, casting baleful looks toward both Jesse and up toward Brennan. Clearly she was waiting for the opportunity to go back to her prey. The cat had a new mouse toy to play with.

Brennan snapped his fingers. Plenty of juice left, but how long it would last would depend on how often he had to drive Shalimar back and keep her away from Jesse. He clicked on his comm. link.

"Adam, we have a problem."

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Y.J. had gotten taller, too. Adam remembered him as a kid barely as tall as Shalimar, but now he was nearly as tall as Adam himself and looking to be as broad in the shoulders. The genetic scans were correct: Yves-Jacques was turning into a large, economy size man with long wavy dark hair and molten brown eyes that Adam was certain that the women of his acquaintance would fall for. Add in an empathic understanding of the female mind, and any man would be lucky to get the time of day from a woman in Y.J.'s presence.

But, under the circumstances, Y.J. was a kid in over his head and he looked it. Tears weren't far from those brown eyes, and the lip showed evidence of some heavy duty biting to keep those tears from flowing yet again. Adam had intended to offer a handshake, to recognize that Y.J. was no longer the twelve year old child who left several years ago but one look and the teen-ager was drawn into a badly needed hug.

There wasn't time for more; the rest would wait for a proper reunion back at Sanctuary. "Where's your stuff?" Adam asked, grabbing a satchel that Y.J. pointed out while the boy hefted the other suitcase. "This it?" Not much to hold the memories of fifteen years of life. Adam resolved to add a bit more. It was the least he could do: set this kid up through the Underground with a pair of foster parents who knew what childhood ought to be and then keep track on a potential high-power talent. After what he had been through, Y.J. deserved a normal life or at least as normal a life as any mutant could have.

A dog. That was what the kid needed. Something that would love him unconditionally for himself, and not for what he could do for others. Adam mentally added a love for pets to his requirements for the foster-parents-to-be. "C'mon," Adam urged. "We've got a crisis to solve. Then a life or two to put back together."

A glimmer of hope spread to Yves-Jacques' face.

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Brennan tested the rope that he tied around the largest and closest boulder he could find, and slung the trank gun over his shoulder. Would it be strong enough to hold him? He really hoped so, because his mutant powers _so_ did not include flying. A little blasting up into the air now and again with some _terra firma_ to push against, but flight was seriously out of the picture.

Shalimar's human mind hadn't returned, but there was nothing wrong with her intelligence. She had decided that tormenting the pesky human on the ledge was just the thing to show how seriously annoyed she was with the whole trapped-with-no-way-out deal, and Brennan was scared that one of these episodes would end up with Jesse being rolled off the edge, screaming his life out on the way down to a messy death. Brennan had already sent a lightning bolt careening down twice more to keep Shalimar in her place, but it was clear that such maneuvers were a stop gap measure.

Nothing like the present. Brennan tested the strength of the rope one last time, took a deep breath, and jumped over the edge.

The cliff face met him in a rush, and he just barely got his feet in front of him in time to take the blow. Down below the snarling stopped as Shalimar paid attention to what was happening far above her head. Good; that gave Brennan more time to pay out the line and ease his way down. More time to spin out waiting for Adam's arrival with help.

He ran out of rope some twelve feet above Jesse's ledge. Two pairs of eyes were staring at him, one set feral-golden and filled with dislike and the other barely able to keep themselves open. Neither pair wanted him there.

"Brennan," Jesse called out, his voice hoarse with despair, "what are you doing? You're never going to be able to get up out of here, let alone down safely. Don't throw your own life away. Wait for Adam. You can't do this, Brennan."

"Watch me," Brennan challenged, estimating the jump. Two choices here: either trank Shalimar from where he hung and hope that she didn't roll off the edge in a drugged stupor, or drop to Jesse's ledge and hope that a) he didn't roll off, taking Jesse with him and b) the ledge didn't crumble beneath their combined weight. Well, if the ledge could withstand Shalimar's jumping back and forth, it could certainly take a little something like two hundred pounds of Mulwray landing on top. Carefully he worked the knot loose, hanging on by a slender rope until he was positioned as close as he could get. No good: he'd land on top of Jesse. And that would almost certainly cause another gush of blood to ooze out of the man's leg, blood which Brennan was willing to bet Jesse wouldn't do well without. Brennan winced; he'd done right to keep Shalimar away from the molecular: she'd been worrying at the wound, tormenting the man as though he were a mouse and she the cat. Was that blood on Shalimar's face? And whose blood was it? Brennan shuddered.

Now or never: Brennan let go and sailed through the air.

He almost misjudged it, landing away from Jesse but one leg sliding over the edge. A shower of rocks cascaded off of the ledge, begging him to follow. Brennan declined. He hastily swung the leg back up onto the ledge, sweat beading his brow and shaking from the close call.

"You idiot," was Jesse's greeting.

"You're welcome," Brennan shot back. "You get your own personal electrified fence, and that's all you can say?"

"Brennan, you've just killed yourself," Jesse returned wearily. His face had gotten white, Brennan noted with dismay. The blood loss was getting to the molecular. Shock wouldn't be long in coming. "How do you expect Adam to haul us all up? No telekinetics on this team, or hadn't you realized?"

"Leave you down here with Shalimar much longer, and we won't have any moleculars, either," Brennan retorted. "Or maybe you like being cat food?"

"Brennan—"

"Adam's on his way here, with help," Brennan said. "He told me that he picked up some muscle, and is bringing more rope than that measly piece of twine that you packed."

"Hey," Jesse quipped feebly, "you were the one who lost Shalimar. I said to trank her. You wanted to play nice."

"No wonder Shalimar's pissed at you," Brennan told him. "She's out for revenge."

"Doing a damn good job of it," Jesse replied, trying and failing to keep his eyes open. He was beginning to shake, too, Brennan noted with dismay; going into shock from blood loss and pain. Brennan shook himself out of his jacket and wrapped it around his teammate, drawing the man up against his chest for the added warmth.

"Damn good job." Jesse's voice trailed off, and he settled limply into Brennan's grasp, giving in to the inevitable darkness. Over on the other ledge Shalimar snarled at the pair of him, nonverbally promising mayhem when she got over there. Brennan crackled some electrons at her warningly.

_Just a little bit longer. Adam, where are you?_

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"So, nobody's been able to get through to Shalimar?"

If Adam was taking the corners a little bit fast, then Y.J. didn't mind. The exhilarating rush of air on his face with the top down on the jeep more than made up for it, and the danger was enough to put teen age adrenaline into glorious action.

"Not yet. I've tried giving her some sedatives, but once they wear off…" The shrug told the whole story.

"I'll handle her." Ah, the self-confidence of youth! Y.J. had no conception of failure. Why should he? He'd been manipulating the emotions of others for years, doing it so well that they never knew what had happened. He'd amassed a stash of money for his father that would make Brennan drool with envy and all this before being able to get a driver's license. "Shalimar and Jesse and me are a team!" Y.J. went on excitedly. "She'll remember me. I'll be able to help her."

"It's not really Shalimar." Adam tried to caution the youth. "She's out of control, Y.J. I don't want you getting close to her. She probably won't recognize you."

"She'll recognize me," Y.J. said firmly. "I'll make her recognize me. Who's this Brennan guy? New guy on the team?"

"Yes. An elemental. Electricity is his specialty."

"Old guy?"

Adam glanced over at the fifteen year old. "Pretty old. Yeah. Not as ancient as me."

The jibe bypassed Y.J. completely. "That's okay. Even for young guys, it's hard to keep up with ferals," he said seriously. "Dr. Adam, you really need a psionic on your team." And let the words hang there, out in the open.

Adam covered over a wince. For all his psychic powers, Y.J. was still only an empath, able to sense feelings but not thoughts. He didn't know about Emma, didn't realize that Adam had agreed that Mutant X needed a psionic but that Y.J. hadn't fit the bill. The talent was there but not the maturity, not the availability and, most importantly, not the ability to work as part of the team.

There is was, out in the open in Adam's own mind. The niggling doubts had been there three years ago when Adam considered fighting Y.J.'s father for custody, but Adam had never really admitted to himself that he didn't trust Y.J. to the extent that Mutant X needed. A nice enough kid, but there was something…

Adam really hoped that Y.J. was reading his emotions as mere concern over Shalimar and Jesse. Y.J. would want to be asked to join Mutant X, was expecting it, and that just wasn't going to happen. But now was not the time to be telling this kid. That deserved a quieter moment, a 'man to man' discussion to put Y.J. onto the right path. These were life decisions, and not things to be said in a jeep flying around corners.

"Yes," Adam finally said. "We'll have to talk about that."

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Shalimar barely looked human. Her teeth were bared in a feral snarl, her clothes ripped beyond wearability, and her expression clearly promised slow dismemberment for the two humans on the other ledge.

It had started to rain, a gentle drizzle that soaked everything and everyone in the vicinity. Brennan looked up at the sky in dismay, searching for a break in the clouds. This was _so_ not good: any attempt by the elemental to generate an electrical spark would result in a massive short circuit. Brennan didn't want to try to predict what the end result would be, but he suspected two human shish-kabobs wouldn't be an unreasonable expectation.

_Damn_. That let out their major form of self-defense. Brennan had been counting on his mutant powers to keep Shalimar at bay until Adam could arrive. He pulled the trank gun closer to his side. It was still a possibility, but had the same drawbacks: Shalimar, sedated, could easily roll off the edge to her death.

_I'd like to say that my mother told me that there would be days like this, but I don't think in her wildest dreams she would have imagined this particular scenario. Adam, where are you?_

He jostled the limp body that he held next to his chest. Jesse's leg was still stuck out awkwardly in front of him but the bleeding had slowed to a gentle ooze. Brennan wasn't certain if that was a good or a bad sign, decided it really didn't matter. Brennan was in no position to do anything about it one way or the other. "Jess? You still with me?"

There was a mumbled reply, followed by, "aren't we going home yet?"

"Pretty soon, bro." Brennan scanned the top of the cliff, hoping to see a familiar face pop up with words of encouragement. _Things like that only happen in movies; cavalry coming over the hill, clouds breaking into rain to save Ma and Pa's crops. Regular poor slobs like us don't get that kind of luck._ "How're you doing?"

Jesse managed a weak excuse for a smile. "I could really use a hot cup of coffee right about now."

"Me, too," Brennan admitted.

"Morphine would also be nice."

Brennan glanced down at his teammate and cursed under his breath. Every time he looked at him, the man seemed to be grower paler and closer to death's door. How could a small thing like a hike in the woods turn into a such a disaster? The answer was simple: they were mutants. The world really _was_ out to get them, in whatever fashion seemed most expedient at the moment. And right now there was a three for one sale going on: not only was Shalimar screaming yellow bonkers but she was about to take both Brennan and Jesse off of the cliff with her. Brennan tried not to think of how much he hated falling off of cliffs. Not that he made a habit of it to know how it felt, but that was one excursion that he'd be happy to avoid.

Shalimar growled, riveting his attention back onto her. She was working herself up again, pacing back and forth. If the events of the past hour were any indication, she'd be trying for a leap over to their ledge. Only this time Brennan's private source of power was out. He hefted the trank gun, hoping that the rain hadn't gotten into the powder that would propel the dart. That would be bad. Really bad. Not to mention that there was only one dart left.

Jesse felt him shift, and winced. "Brennan?"

"Hang in there, bro. Think I'm gonna be a little busy real soon."

Jesse levered himself up onto his elbows to see, ignoring the signals that his leg was sending brainward. "What can I do?"

"Try not to get in the way."

Jesse squinted at the narrow ledge. It was barely large enough for the two of them, let alone a pouncing feral. "How come I get all the tough tasks to do?"

"Look out; here she comes!" Brennan flashed up the trank gun and fired. His aim was true: the dart soared straight for his feral teammate.

But insanity had not altered Shalimar's intelligence. Somehow she altered her path mid-leap, and the dart passed within scant inches of her torso.

She landed on the ledge. If she had had a tail, it would have been lashing back and forth. She growled again.

"Shalimar, you don't want to do this." Brennan tossed the now useless trank gun away and scrambled to his feet, dropping Jesse to the floor of the ledge, a startled groan in reply. There was no time to be gentle. "Shalimar, it's me! Brennan!" He tried to snap a few electrons out; a gentle hiss in the rain warned him not to go any further with that thought.

_All right, gonna have to do this the hard way_. Brennan balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to kick. Shalimar was faster, but he had the longer reach and Brennan intended to make best use of that fact. He put himself between the feral and the molecular.

Shalimar lashed out. Brennan blocked. Fire slapped across his arm but Shalimar fell back. Volley one: Brennan. He kept his eyes on, following every dancing move.

For whatever reason, she wanted to get to Jesse. While Brennan watched Shalimar, Shalimar tracked every movement that Jesse made. Sick pack member, for the wolves to single out and kill? For Shalimar was operating purely on animal instinct right now. A horrid thought struck him: was Shalimar so far gone that she intended to kill Jesse? It certainly looked like it.

This was _so_ not good. Brennan chanced a glance behind him. "Jesse, see if you can move further back."

"Not much room." But Jesse did as he was told, painfully hitching himself back until his back was against the far end of the cliff face. There was still precious little room for the combatants. Brennan could see the molecular out of the corner of his eye, though his attention remained on Shalimar.

She growled, looking for a way past her enemy to her prey. She feinted, clearly intent on drawing Brennan out. Brennan declined to be suckered. He held his position between Shalimar and Jesse, holding his arms up in a classic defense, rocking back and forth from one foot to the other. She feinted again.

The feint wasn't a feint; it was for real. Shalimar struck a blow; Brennan blocked downward. Shalimar whirled into a kick that would have taken Brennan's head off if he hadn't ducked. She turned it into a romp across the side of the cliff face, lashing out with the other foot.

That one did connect. Brennan saw stars, felt himself falling—grab! Grab! Going over the edge! Grab on!

He clutched at the ledge with his fingertips, the blood rushing through his ears, adrenaline turning him hyper-acute. Pebbles bounced off the cliff below him, requesting his presence a thousand feet below. One hand slipped, and he flailed frantically until he was able to seize the edge and clamp on again with desperation.

Then he heard it: screams mixed with growls. _Shalimar, killing Jesse_.

Panic gave him strength. He hoisted himself up, blessing the countless hours spent working out.

She wasn't killing the molecular. It was far worse than that. She was torturing him, making him wish for death, a cat playing with a trapped mouse. A slender giggle slipped out, and she kicked Jesse in the leg again. The broken one. The one with the bone fragments sticking out. Blood spurted forth. And the response from her victim was predictable.

There was nothing sane about Shalimar at this moment. She giggled once more.

"Shalimar!" Brennan yelled. She whirled around, her lips drawn back in a livid snarl. She'd thought him dead, sprawled on the rocks below.

No time for anything else. No other options. No trank gun. No martial arts wizardry. And in the rain.

Brennan blasted her. The lightning bolt made a horrid counterpoint to the clouds above.

He missed.


	5. Chapter 5

"Brennan!" Adam shouted into the comm. link, slamming onto the brakes to stop the jeep and sending up a shower of freshly made mud. He jumped out, Y.J. beside him, running to the edge of the cliff. They both could hear the screams from the rock face, hear the animalistic growls of a beast savaging a human. Y.J. didn't understand the implications, but Adam did. "Brennan!" he yelled again. "Jesse!"

They heard a blast. Adam identified the sound immediately: "Brennan!"

"Who?" Y.J. had never met the elemental.

"Brennan," Adam tossed back over his shoulder. "C'mon, Y.J.! That's Shalimar down below! We have to get to her, to all of them!"

The rope that Brennan had tied to the boulder earlier told the whole story: Brennan descending to rescue Jesse. Shalimar, thwarting that rescue. And the shouts from below saying that the ending hadn't yet been written. Adam blessed that fact. He grabbed the packs out of the jeep, thrusting one at Y.J. and hustling them both to the edge of the cliff. He stopped short when the edge threatened to give way. Dirt scuttled loose and threw token pebbles away, offering to do the same for the two rescuers.

"Don't fall over," Adam hastily grabbed onto Y.J.'s shoulder and forced them both down flat so that they could safely see over the edge. "Where are they?"

The angle was bad, but not so bad that Adam couldn't see what was happening: Brennan trying to one-handedly crawl up over the edge of the ledge, fingers blackened and contorted with the backlash of a short circuit. There was a barely human figure with dirt-filthy hair pounding on a heap of senseless flesh. Blood leaked from both onto the narrow ledge, sinking into the hard rock of the cliff face. Little growls came from the inhuman beast.

"Shalimar!" Adam yelled, trying to force sense into the feral.

Shalimar looked up, snarled at him. Adam's heart quailed; there was nothing remotely sane about the tiny woman he cared so much about.

But Y.J. was there. "It's okay, Dr. Adam," he said seriously. "I got it." He stared at the tableau beneath them, screwing up his features with heartfelt concentration.

There was nothing visible, nothing to be seen rocketing between the empath and the feral, yet Adam would later swear that somehow _something_ had connected from one to the other. Emma had had minimal success with controlling Shalimar's wildness, but Y.J. had the _gift_. First it was her bouncing around: Adam watched as Shalimar gradually sat back on her haunches, then backed away from her victim to lean tiredly against the cliff wall. Then the snarling abated, to drift off into wordless whimpering and finally into a restless sleep. The filthy blonde hair drooped over everything and obscured any view of her face. She sighed deeply.

It was astounding. It was better than Emma at her best, better than anything Adam had ever seen from any psionic. How far had this kid gone in three years? "How did you do that?" Adam tried to keep the suspicion out of his voice, replacing it with amazement.

Y.J. shrugged, the almost man melting into little boy under the obvious sense of accomplishment. "I dunno. It just sorta came. Shalimar's a girlfriend of mine."

_A girlfriend?_ Adam wouldn't swear that he _hadn't_ heard that possessive note in Y.J.'s tones. And the kid _was_ a fifteen year old with hormones on full blast, ripe for all kinds of adolescent fantasies. But, first things first: "Can you keep her like that?" Adam jerked his thumb at Shalimar.

"Oh, yeah. She's all fixed, Dr. Adam." Y.J. looked serious. "There was something funny inside her mind. I can't really explain it; there aren't words to talk about it. But it's not gonna come out again. Shalimar's okay now. She's not gonna hurt anybody anymore. Not unless she wants to."

Down below, Brennan gingerly hauled himself up onto the narrow ledge, wincing as his burned palm rubbed against a loose rock. The drizzle of rain had stopped, leaving a coating of mud behind and a sun trying to peek between the disappearing clouds. The man himself looked covered in mud, sweat, and tears but thankfully, Adam realized, no blood. _At least one mutant is intact. Sort of._ Brennan kept his eyes on his sleeping feral teammate all the while he made his way over to check on Jesse, carefully skirting around Shalimar as far as he could without falling off the edge of the cliff. "He's still alive," he called up to the pair on the top of the cliff. "But he doesn't look good. His leg's bleeding again."

Adam sent up heartfelt thanks. _We can work with this_. "We have to get him out of there. Both of them," he amended. "How are you?"

"Alive, and happy not to be a smear on the rocks below. You bring along a crane to hoist us up, I hope?"

"I wish." Adam scanned the meager equipment in the jeep. There hadn't been much time; he'd thrown whatever was at hand and seemed even marginally worthwhile into the back before dashing off to get Y.J. and arrive here. There was plenty of rope, he'd brought that. And his medical kit with the emergency first aid stuff.

An inkling of a plan came together. He scanned Y.J. thoughtfully. "You driving yet?"

Y.J.'s eyes lit up. "No license yet. Not officially."

Adam took that to mean that yes, Y.J. believed that he could handle anything on road or off and would welcome the opportunity to put that belief into practice, experience not required. Fortunately, precise driving maneuvers were not what Adam had in mind. But: "You up to handling a stick shift?"

Y.J. went blank. "What's that?"

"Manual transmission."

Better, but not much. Then another idea hit Y.J. with the force of a small tsunami. "Not a problem, Dr. Adam." He reached over to touch Adam's head.

Next thing Adam knew, he was sitting on the hard and rocky ground, feeling like a substantial portion of his brains had been sucked out.

"Wow," Y.J. was saying. "That never happened before. That was _so_ cool. You okay, Dr. Adam?"

Adam blinked, willing his thoughts to become coherent before his mouth went into action. He took a deep breath and asked calmly, "What did you do, Y.J.?"

Y.J. shrugged. "You said I needed to know how to work a manual transmission. There wasn't any time, so I got the knowledge straight from your brain. I can do that sometimes. Doesn't always work, and usually I've just tried it with little bits of stuff. This was a whole big chunk of knowledge. Did I hurt you?"

"No," Adam said, hoping that it wasn't a lie. It wasn't, really. Yes, he had this empty feeling inside his cranium, but the rest of him seemed to be intact. He searched; yes, he still remembered how to drive a stick. Whatever Y.J. had done, he hadn't damaged Adam. Y.J. had copied the knowledge rather than lifting it wholesale. Rather a useful talent; Adam would have to take the time to study it after this whole episode was over. _Hm__ Keep the kid around to study his talent or move him on to a suitable foster family so that the inevitable in-fighting in Sanctuary that his presence would cause wouldn't occur? Decisions, decisions._ Now Adam's head did hurt.

Y.J. had already moved on. He'd plucked the plan from Adam's mind as well, the scientist realized, going to tie one end of a long rope to the undercarriage of the jeep without being asked or directed. They didn't have the crane that Brennan had asked for, but they did have the jeep to provide the hoisting power. Adam crawled back onto his feet and grabbed the pneumatic splint from his kit, fastening it to the other end of the rope.

"Brennan," he called down. "I'm lowering a splint for Jesse's leg. Can you reach it?"

"Lower away. Got it in sight."

The splint was down in moments, swinging in the breeze rustling along the cliff edge. Adam paid out the line and Brennan grabbed for it, detaching the package from the rope and, eyeing the still quiescent Shalimar, approached his other teammate.

Jesse stirred enough to open his eyes. "Brennan?"

"Getting you out of here, bro. Unless you've got a pressing reason to stay."

But the molecular's gaze fastened on Shalimar. His recent tormentor was still quiet, but now her eyes had opened and were fastened vaguely on the pair. Brennan didn't need to ask a question to know what was going through Jesse's mind. "It's okay, bro. Got her under control."

"Right." _Wanting to believe_. Wanting to get off this ledge before a certain blonde bombshell exploded and took them with her. Brennan gently eased the pneumatic splint around Jesse's leg, trying not to wince every time the molecular did, trying not to quake every time the man stifled a groan of pain. It was clear that Jesse was at the end of his rope, no pun intended. _Time for a rescue_.

It was done. Brennan next tied the rope under Jesse's arms, making certain to secure it tightly enough so that the man wouldn't slip through the loop if he lost consciousness and went limp before the pair above hauled him to the top. He tugged twice on the line as a signal. "Haul away." He winked deliberately at Jesse, trying to keep up his spirits. "Next floor, ladies' lingerie."

Jesse smiled weakly, playing along. "Ugly sales clerks."

"Hey, is that any way to talk about the man who's about to shoot you full of pain-killers?"

But Jesse was already out of earshot, slowly being hoisted into the air, leg dangling at an awkward angle. Brennan shuddered as the leg accidentally jostled against the cliff. _Damn. That's gotta hurt_.

Movement caught his eye: _Shalimar!_ He paid more attention.

Shalimar had opened her own eyes, was watching him with a decidedly unhappy look. One, he thought, that said more that she was horribly upset with what had just occurred than that she was dissatisfied with his current level of breathing. _Good sign_. "Shalimar?"

"Brennan?" Small little voice. _Great big question_.

Brennan looked her over thoroughly, weighing in his own mind what he ought to do if words failed. The feral was completely bedraggled, hair in filthy knots, clothing torn and tattered with scrapes and bruises dotting the usually flawless skin. There was an unhealthy amount of blood in her vicinity but most of it, he feared, belonged to a certain molecular that they both knew and loved. She was barefoot, the previously well-manicured toenails missing most of their polish; Brennan couldn't remember when the shoes had disappeared. But the eyes were coherent, and sane. "Feel like tearing me to shreds, Shal?"

"No." Then: "did I before?"

"Yes," Brennan admitted honestly.

"And… do I remember Jesse being here?"

"Well… yeah." Brennan looked around him. The ledge was as narrow as ever, and the leftover mud didn't make it any more enticing. Some of that mud had a suspiciously blood red look to it. "Feel like getting out of here?"

Shalimar nodded soberly. "You'd better trank me, Brennan. I don't remember much, but I'm really hoping that some of the stuff in my mind isn't real." She looked at him pleadingly, asking him to confirm that she hadn't done what she thought she had.

Brennan side-stepped the question and held out his empty hands. "Fresh out, Shal. No tranquilizers, no drugs, not even a stiff martini on the rocks. But Adam thinks he's got the answer up top."

"Emma?" Shalimar's eyes lit up.

Brennan took that as a positive sign and told himself to quit tensing up. "Not quite. But close. You want to go up next? Adam'll be sending the rope back down any time now."

Shalimar glanced around at her surroundings, spotted the short rope that Brennan had used to get himself down. "That's okay. I think I've caused enough trouble. This part I'll handle by myself." She started to bring her comm. ring to her face, and realized that somewhere in the melee she had lost the small gold circlet. "Tell Adam I'm on my way up." She grimaced. "Wouldn't want him to shoot me when I arrive. Even though I probably deserve it."

"Shal—"

"It's okay, Brennan. I'm myself. At least, I am right now." She looked incredibly unhappy. "I'm not going to try to hurt anyone again." She bunched the muscles of her legs, and sprang.

Shalimar soared up into the air and effortlessly latched onto the rope that Brennan had left hanging in his own inglorious descent to the ledge. The leap was several lengths above her head, too far for any normal human to achieve in a single bound, but Shalimar was a feral. She snatched the rope with both hands, and then 'walked' her way up the face of the cliff. Brennan watched her graceful ascent, realizing ruefully that he himself had more trouble climbing a flight of stairs. _Up side of being a feral._

Brennan decided that a slow and sedate climb for himself at the end of a rope was also in no one's best interests. What if Shalimar went crazy again? They'd need him up above. Who would be up there if he wasn't? Just Adam, and that Y.J. kid he'd spoke of, the one with a mutant power like Emma's only not as grown up. He snorted. For a kid, he'd done pretty well. He'd pulled Shalimar back to normalcy when Emma couldn't. Pretty powerful for a mere kid. _Let's not underestimate this one._

But getting up to the action was next on the agenda. Rain stopped, no heavy molecular to carry up with him and reduce the height he could achieve; Brennan fired up the electrons. And if the ledge crumbled after that? Not a big deal. Brennan had no intention of coming back here. Or letting anyone back here. No moleculars with broken legs, no crazy ferals.

_For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction_.

Brennan used that particular Newtonian Law to propel himself skyward. The lightning bolt blasted from his fingertips and rocketed him up and over the edge of the cliff. With the skill of a natural athlete, with abilities honed to within an inch of his life, Brennan landed gracefully on the ground next to the others.

Shalimar disengaged from a heartfelt hug from what appeared to be an awkwardly tall and ungainly teen-ager. Brennan cleverly deduced that this was the Yves-Jacques that Adam had spoke of. The kid didn't reach up to Brennan's height, but Brennan would have trouble looking over that mop of unruly black hair unless standing on his toes. Not bad for fifteen, he decided. And an empath, able to figure out what any woman wanted just by looking at her? Brennan also decided on the spot not to go after any woman that this kid wanted for himself. _There's such a thing as an unfair advantage_, he told himself, _even for a teen-ager_

Brennan pushed himself forward, extending a welcoming hand. "Hey, man," he told Y.J. "We owe you, Jesse and me. And Shalimar."

"You've got that right," Shalimar echoed. She gave Y.J. another little squeeze. "You couldn't have turned up at a better time. When I think of what might have happened…" Her voice trailed off.

Y.J. shrugged, a pleased smile flickering over his lips. "That's okay."

"No, really, man." Brennan recognized the teen age shyness about praise. Praise hadn't happened to Brennan nearly enough in his own formative years, but then Brennan hadn't grown up where people tended to give each other compliments. This kid deserved better, and Brennan was happy to pitch in. "This was not a good place to be until you came along. The team owes you one."

Y.J. finally broke into a grin. "Always said that Dr. Adam needed a psionic on the team," he started to say, but both Brennan and Shalimar had already turned away to their teammate.

Adam opened the splint to examine Jesse's leg. The molecular was still on the ground where Adam and Y.J. had gently laid him down, the rope harness removed. The man was almost as filthy as his feral teammate but with the added attraction of far too much blood leaking from the sharp and jagged edges of bone sticking out from beneath the skin. Shalimar bit her lip, looking away uncomfortably. Adam ignored her. "I need to get him back to Sanctuary ASAP," was his opinion. "Surgery, antibiotics—"

"Pain-killers," Jesse slipped in, gasping. "Let's not forget that one."

"Pain-killers," Adam amended with a tight smile. "Let's do something about that right now. Y.J., get my kit from the jeep. Shalimar, Brennan, I want you to help hold Jesse still while I secure the splint again."

But no one missed the sudden terror on Jesse's face when Shalimar moved in to help. He automatically went to shield himself, throwing up his arms before he realized what he was doing. Shalimar drew back in dismay. "Jesse, I am so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen."

Jesse swallowed gamely. "I know you didn't, Shal. This wasn't your fault." He forced himself to hold out a hand to her, mutely extending the apology. "Help me."

Y.J. hurried over with Adam's medical kit. "I can do it," he offered. "You don't need drugs, Jesse. Let me help you." He reached out both hands toward Jesse's head, intending to push the mutant into an empathic dreamland. "I told you that you needed a psionic on the team, Dr. Adam."

"Don't touch him."

The words cracked out like a whiplash. They all looked up, startled.

Emma was there, unseen sparks snapping around her like a halo. It didn't take a psionic to see them; the rest of Mutant X knew they were there. Just as they knew that the look of naked fury on Emma's face meant something very bad was happening.

"Emma—?" Adam started to rise.

"Don't let him touch Jesse." There was no mistaking the tone of Emma's voice. "He's the one."

"The one?" Adam was confused.

"He's the one who pushed Shalimar into insanity." Emma stalked forward.

"Emma, what are you talking about? He's been helping us—"

"You remember that I couldn't identify who was doing anything to her? That I thought that someone was, but there was no trace? It was because he wasn't pushing at her all the time. Only when Shalimar appeared to be crazy." She stopped in front of Yves-Jacques. "It's over. This is _my_ team. You're not going to hurt them any more. Not Shalimar, not Adam, not Brennan or Jesse."

"_Your_ team?" Y.J. looked at Adam in absolute shock. Color drained from his face. "I thought you didn't have a psionic!"

"Y.J., I'm sorry," Adam said, the dismay plain to see. "I was going to tell you once we got back to Sanctuary. There just wasn't time. This is Emma—"

"He knows who I am," Emma interrupted coldly. "Don't you, Yves-Jacques?"

Yves-Jacques straightened up, and Mutant X could almost but not quite 'see' the same sort of unseen sparks gathering around him as they didn't 'see' around Emma.

Disaster approached. It rumbled like thunder, deep and unrelenting. Adam tried again with desperation edging his voice. "We can talk this out. Emma, Y.J.—"

"We don't talk, Dr. Adam." The cold look was equally set on Y.J.'s face. "We're psionics. We don't talk. We _think!_" He hurled a psychic blast at Emma.

Emma threw up her own shields in time, but the force of Y.J.'s fury drove her back. It flung her into the air and she crumbled to the ground.

Brennan had seen enough. He powered up.

Not fast enough. Electricity moved quickly, but not as fast as the speed of thought. And not with the deviousness of an angry teen-ager. Y.J. struck not at Brennan but at Shalimar.

She hissed, suddenly insanely feral once again. Shalimar struck at Brennan, sending his lightning bolt not at their common enemy but careening toward Adam. Adam yelped and ducked, rolling frantically away with a new part in his hair.

It didn't stop. Brennan had routinely worked out with Shalimar, but this was a far cry from a practice session. The feral struck, not pulling any punches, and struck again. Brennan threw up a block, and another, and another just to keep his head on his shoulder. And, in between, Shalimar went after the other standing member of Mutant X. She slammed Adam against the jeep. He slumped, and went down, thoroughly out-classed.

Shalimar was completely insane. Emma cried out in frustration, unable to stop it, for Y.J. had turned his attention back to his own enemy, the one person of Mutant X who would prevent him from joining the group that he so desperately wanted. The mutant who held the position that Y.J. believed he deserved. With Emma there, Y.J. would never be allowed to stay. One of them had to go, and Y.J. determined that it would be Emma. He lashed out at her, eager to destroy the competition and win his place on Mutant X.

The feral pounced. Two pesky humans finished, one crumbled against the jeep and the other helplessly lying on the ground with a brokenhind legwaiting for her to torture and kill him. Shalimar bounced from boulder to tree, easily dodging the lightning bolts that the last annoying human flung at her, laughing as the ozone crackled past her shoulder. _This was living!_ Living on the edge, death around the corner, fighting for survival! She slammed both feet into the chest of the lightning-throwing human, tumbling him head over heels. A slash of her claws, and he rolled over, senseless.

Hah! Kill the last human, the one she had played with earlier. Should she torment him longer? _Yes!_ Torment him until he died, and wasn't fun to play with any longer. Then she could torment the next one, and the next one. How long could she make the playthings last?

Her head hurt so much—_make it stop!_ Suddenly she saw not her prey, but Jesse Kilmartin, the mutant that she loved like a little brother. Shalimar looked up. "Emma?"

"Shalimar!" Emma shouted. "Don't give in to him! Don't—"

Y.J. again tightened his mental hold. "She's mine! They all are! Go away, before I kill you!"

Hot flesh, waiting for the feral to rip into it, sink her teeth into the blood-rich organs, feel hot meat to nourish her hunger. The feral advanced on the human with the blood leaking from his leg, determined to carry the carcass away where the scavengers couldn't steal it from her. This was her kill! She growled, excitement leaking out in little noises of eagerness.

Y.J. stood by, exerting his control over the crazed feral. "You see?" he taunted Emma. "They're mine. All of them. One move, and Jesse dies. I can have Shalimar kill all of them, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"That won't help you," Emma said grimly. "You can't join Mutant X if they're all dead."

"That's up to you," Y.J. told her. "It's in your hands. Do you love them enough to walk away? Or do we fight, you and I? While we're fighting, I'll release Shalimar's killer instincts, and there'll be nothing left to fight over. She'll kill Jesse first, then Dr. Adam and the elemental. There won't be enough for a burial when she gets through with the bodies. When she sees what she's done, she'll kill herself. Do you want that?"

Emma felt desperate. "They'll know what you've done. They won't want you."

"You know better than that," Y.J. scolded. "Once you're gone, I'll make them forget that you ever existed. I can do it; you know I can." He folded his arms. "What is it to be? Leave, and they live. Fight, and they die." He cocked his head. "I'm more powerful than you, and you know it. Either way: I win. Give up now, and let them live." He made a small gesture. Shalimar hissed in response and crouched at her little brother's side. She raised her hand to strike Jesse: a death blow.

_Down, but not out_. Jesse Kilmartin, molecular and not ready to give up, pulled Shalimar into an embrace and phased his arms solidly around her. Shalimar squalled. Jesse only tightened his grip. This was _his_ team: his sister, his mentor, his brother, and he would die defending them however he could. He would defend them from themselves, if necessary, and right now it was: Shalimar was helpless in Jesse's arms. "Take him out, Emma!" Jesse yelled, still lying on the ground.

Shalimar hissed and spat. She head-butted her intended prey, she squirmed and struggled, to no avail. Jesse phased his entire body to rock hardness, engulfing the feral in an inescapable cage that would release only when Jesse allowed it—or when he ran out of breath.

There was no time to waste. Freed from constraints, no longer needing to be concerned for the safety of the rest of her team, Emma called upon all of her power.

Yves-Jacques flung bolt after bolt of psychic energy. Emma ignored them as though they were the merest tickle, her shields deflecting the blows into harmlessness.

She sent three of her own strikes, one after the other, slapping Yves-Jacques to the ground. He cried out, understanding for the first time the enormous power of the mutant that he had challenged for supremacy.

"Please!" Y.J. pleaded, holding his hands together in desperation. "I didn't mean it!"

"Yes, you did," Emma reminded him. She stood over him. "You can't lie to me, Yves-Jacques. Neither of us can lie to the other. It's over."

"Yes, it is. For you!" Y.J. tried one last assault, confident that he had suckered her in.

The world rocked.

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"You got here just in time, Emma." Brennan slipped an arm under Jesse's shoulder, helping Adam to hoist the molecular up into the air and carry him to the jeep. "I don't how we would have controlled Shalimar without you."

"I still don't know what caused it," Adam fretted. "Easy there, Brennan. Slide him into the back." Jesse gasped in sudden agony as the movement jostled the broken bones, causing them to grate against each other. "It's okay, Jesse. We'll have you back at Sanctuary in no time and the pain-killers should be kicking in at any minute now. Emma, you and Brennan bring Shalimar back along with the other vehicles. I need to run more tests, see what the problem was with Shalimar so that it doesn't happen again. Emma, you're certain that no psionics were involved? A problem of this nature, another psionic would be a very sensible explanation."

Emma shook her head firmly. "I scanned several times, Adam. There was no one. And there's no one here besides us." She put a reassuring hand on Adam's, touching bare skin to bare skin. "It had to have been something momentary inside Shalimar's DNA. It's gone now. There's nothing to find. It's over. We will probably never know what the exact cause was."

Adam nodded. "We'll probably never know what the exact cause was," he repeated.

"Jesse, I am so sorry." Shalimar was beside herself with remorse. She pushed the filthy curls back behind her ears, dashing a tear from her face. It left a streak of mud behind. "I could have killed you!"

"You wouldn't have." Jesse patted her hand, holding it firm so that she couldn't escape. "Shalimar, this wasn't your fault." He hoped that she didn't notice the terror that shook his hands at being so close to his tormentor. He knew that Shalimar wasn't to blame, but the memory of the bedraggled blonde curls framing the features about to tear into his throat…

Emma tightened her grasp on his shoulder, and a reassuring warmth seeped through Jesse, the fear receding with artificial speed. He glanced up at the empath, his eyes locking with hers, frowning. "Someone has to remember," he murmured, quietly enough so that the others couldn't hear.

"No, they don't." Emma carefully squeezed once more, including Adam in the tactile comfort. Jesse's eyes went blank, and she could all but see Adam's thoughts: the pain-killer must be kicking in. Emma then moved on to Brennan and Shalimar, taking them both by the hand. "We'll collect the other cars, Adam, and meet you back in Sanctuary. Take care of Jesse."

"Good." If Adam's eyes were slightly glazed, only one person noticed. "Don't take too long. I'll need help with fixing Jesse's leg. And running tests on Shalimar."

"The tests won't show anything. There's nothing to find."

"The tests won't show anything," Adam repeated obediently. "There's nothing to find."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Lexa Pierce peered at the computer screen. It beeped at her once again, determined to frustrate the living daylights out of the chromatic. She pushed her long black hair behind her ears irritably. "The man kept secret after secret after secret! Was there no end to what he put in here?"

Jesse moved in to look over her shoulder, hanging a hand on her shoulder. "That's not Adam. That's from Emma." His face tightened. "I didn't know that she put anything into the computer. I thought that she hated them, wouldn't store any information there that she didn't have to." His lips turned downward, and he rubbed at a sudden old ache in his leg. "I miss her."

"Well, for someone who didn't like computers, she put a lot of protection on this particular file." Lexa tapped at the keyboard in annoyance. "This must have been important to her. Jesse? Jesse?" She looked around at her fellow mutant, only to see a puzzled look on his face.

"I know this file," he said slowly. "I know the passwords. I've never heard them before, never learned this, but somehow I remember the passwords." He pulled the keyboard from Lexa, hesitating only once as he typed in the codes to unlock the file.

A picture flashed up on the computer screen, that of a teen-age dark haired boy. The inscription read Yves-Jacques St. Legere, dead at age fifteen, body unrecoverable. And then Emma's voice floated out of the speakers, communicating from beyond the grave:

"You were right, Jesse; someone has to know. If you've found this file, then the psychic suggestion I left behind in your mind will have worked. You're remembering that day on the cliff, when Shalimar went insane. I'm sure that you remember it very well: Shalimar was crazy, you broke your leg in three places and were terrified of her for a week until I could get your nightmares to stop. Adam drove himself wild trying to figure what had caused Shalimar's madness, and Brennan wandered around Sanctuary like a lost child trying to decide whether to watch Shalimar for a setback or nurse you while you recovered. It was Yves-Jacques, all the way. He was the one behind Shalimar's madness. He staged it as a way to worm himself into Mutant X, after his father died and left him alone. He was dangerous, Jesse. If I hadn't stopped him, he would have been the next Gabriel Ashlocke. He had no sense of right or wrong, no concern for others. He thought only of himself. Don't tell Adam; he'll blame himself for not trying to keep the boy from his father and bringing him up as a responsible mutant. It wasn't Adam's fault; there are just some of us who aren't meant to live. Some of us have too much power to keep the world safe; I only hope that I'm not one of them. Just tell Adam that I loved him, that I loved you all. That I did this for him and for the rest of the world."

The file faded into blackness.


End file.
